


Vigilance VIII: Unending Path

by nightinngales



Series: Vigilance [8]
Category: Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, F/F, Like really a lot of lore adjusments, Lore Adjustments, Mod References, Modded Skyrim, Valenwood (Elder Scrolls)
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-25
Updated: 2021-02-06
Packaged: 2021-03-17 09:48:41
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 4
Words: 28,981
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28972347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nightinngales/pseuds/nightinngales
Summary: Eres and Serana should have known better than to think that Valenwood would be a vacation. Tamriel is a hotbed for political strife, and Valenwood is no exception. Between confronting Auria's past, connecting with her cultural roots, and trying to settle back into a sense of normalcy, there's really no such thing as 'not getting involved'. One way or another, trouble's going to come knocking, and Eres has never been the type not to answer it.
Relationships: Female Dovahkiin | Dragonborn/Serana
Series: Vigilance [8]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1585780
Comments: 30
Kudos: 47





	1. Echoes

**Author's Note:**

> Remember when I warned you all initially that there would be lore changes regarding the Bosmer like... wayyyy back in the early acts? Hello! Welcome to the lore changes. You'll still see familiar elements from the original Elder Scrolls lore, but quite a few things have been shifted and adjusted and rewritten when it comes to the Bosmer. Because fuck the "cannibalistic savages" trope, that's why. If you're more of a lore purist, you will probably not enjoy this act quite as much due to how many changes there will be. But - at the same time, there may be a few surprises waiting in store for you if you give it a chance. ;)

They’re somewhere south of Arenthia. Southeast, maybe. Eres isn’t sure where. As soon as they’d crossed the border into Valenwood, Auria had taken over as navigator, and Eres has done nothing but follow her lead since. They’d made camp before sunset, hours before Eres had wanted to, but it was Auria who knew these parts, not her, and so she had agreed.

The night is alive with the music of cricket song and wind rustling the leaves of trees high above their heads. It’s warm and dry enough that they didn’t bother to pitch a tent for the night, and though Eres knows the sky is somewhere above her head, somewhere beyond the trees, she can only see the faintest glimmer of moonlight filtering through the tiny gaps in the canopies that seem to shy away from each other. Always close, but never touching.

Somewhere beyond that are the moons and stars, glimmering in the night sky above, and somewhere beyond that is Sovngarde. Unreachable. Unknowable.

Unforgettable.

The cricket song is deafening here, so much louder so than Skyrim or even Cyrodiil that Eres struggles to hear her own thoughts beneath it. But her mind is flung far away, somewhere beyond the forest and the crickets and even the stars themselves.

She stares up at the darkened canopies above her head and she sees not the rustling of leaves but the billow of canvas above her head. In her ears are not the sound of crickets, but that of ice shifting and groaning beneath her. The rustle of leaves on the wind is the whistle of cold air, howling across a frozen lake, buffeting the thick canvas of the tent above her head.

She is miles away. Years away, it feels like.

Her body may be in Valenwood, just past the border, lying peacefully beneath the trees with her mother and Isran sleeping not so far away, with Serana leaning against the upturned roots of a nearby tree, absorbed in a book Eres had brought her from the shop in Skingrad - a book she’d actually never read, for once.

Eres’ body is there. Her mind is not.

Her mind is lost in memories of the Forgotten Vale. Her mind is somewhere with the crawl of anxiety up her legs as the ice shifts beneath her feet. Somewhere with Durnehviir curled on the ice near her.

Somewhere with Serana, what feels like years ago now, wishing for all the world to be left alone - to be left unremarkable. To be normal. To provide for Fellburg, and nothing else, and stop involving herself in matters well beyond her scope.

_“It’s just one more thing to worry about. One more role I have to play.”_

How could she have known what it would come to all that time ago? How could she have known where it would all lead?

_“No one says you have to do these things, Eres. You can always say no.”_

_You can always say no_.

She’d made it sound so easy.

Could Eres have ever said no? Could she have said no when Gwyneth had come to her about Bartholo? If she’d never gone to Bruiant or Coldharbour - would she be here, now? Would she—no. If she hadn’t gone then, Molag Bal would have found some other way to reach her. She’d never had a choice. Just the illusion of one.

_“We have time, now.”_

But Eres doesn’t know what to do with it. Who are they without a cause?

Who is _she_ , without a purpose?

“I can hear you thinking all the way over here.” Eres blinks. When she turns her head, Serana is looking back at her, an all-too-knowing look in her eyes. Concern overshadows whatever wry amusement might have been in that look. “Do you want to talk about it?”

“I was just thinking.” Eres looks back up at the trees. Maybe if she could see the stars, she would feel better. Maybe she’s just feeling homesick.

“We’ve established that,” Serana’s voice sounds closer now. Serana sits near her head, and Eres feels the brush of gentle fingers against her scalp. Normally, Serana could lull her to sleep like this - but Eres’ mind is far too occupied for resting.

Eres doesn’t react to the sarcasm, which perhaps says more about her state of mind than it doesn’t.

“I was just—wondering,” Eres murmurs. “What I’m going to do now.”

“When we get to Falinesti?”

“In general.” Sleep isn’t coming to her. Eres stands, turning to walk without really having a particular direction in mind. She just needs to move. To do something. To do anything. “What am I supposed to do, now?”

Serana falls into step beside her, following without question - because of course she does. Eres had expected she would.

“Whatever you want to do,” Serana says, shrugging. Like that’s easy. Like Eres should know. “You don’t have to do much of anything if you don’t want to. This is supposed to be a vacation, Eres. The only thing you really ‘need’ to do at all is _relax_.”

Eres holds back a scoff, looking away from her. “I don’t think I know how to relax.”

“It shows,” Serana drawls, at her most unimpressed.

Eres rolls her eyes. “Ha, ha.” She sighs. “I don’t know what to do with myself.”

“Only you could find a way to be depressed about having no responsibilities.”

“Shut up,” Eres mutters. She knows she’s a bit of a workaholic, but that’s not the problem. It’s not even just that she has nothing to do, though that is part of it. A much larger part of it is that it feels like there’s something she _should_ be doing and isn’t. She says as much to Serana, and Serana stops where she stands.

“Not like that,” Eres hurries to say, knowing where her mind has gone. “It’s not—like before,” she says, though she couldn’t have explained the difference if she tried. “It just—it feels like it’s not real—” mud squelches under her toes. She frowns, looking down to find herself at the bank of a lake she can’t remember having walked to. “How did we get here?”

“Not important,” Serana says. “What do you mean, it doesn’t feel real?”

The worry in Serana’s voice, the concern in her eyes, the trepidation in her very bones, is all too apparent. Eres knows what it sounds like.

“Not like that.” Eres sighs again, with significantly more frustration than before. How can she explain it in a way that won’t make Serana worry? “I mean, it feels like—like this,” she sweeps her arm out toward the lake—toward the picture-perfect reflection of the moon and stars rippling on dark waters, to the radiance of bioluminescent flowers that glow just beneath the surface near the bottom of a cliff that juts out at the far side of the lake from where they stand. “All of this. It feels like a lie.”

Serana looks out toward the lake, too, but she doesn’t see what Eres sees. She doesn’t feel what Eres feels - she can see that much in her eyes. Eres can see the effort in it, the way that Serana tries to understand, but can’t. Of course she couldn’t.

“Valenwood isn’t what you expected?” Serana tries. She is trying, Eres knows.

She’s still hopelessly wrong.

“No.” Eres crosses her arms, hugging herself. The air is unexpectedly cooler by the lake’s edge. Compared to Skyrim, it’s still unbearably warm, but cool enough that the temperature difference makes her shiver. “It’s too quiet. Too—”

“Peaceful?” Serana asks, like she knows the answer. A certain kind of understanding dawns in her eyes then, and at least she might get part of it.

“It feels like a trap.” Eres should be able to look at this lake and see the beauty in it. She should be able to close her eyes at night and fall asleep to the sound of cricket-song without worrying herself into an anxious mess. She should be able to take it easy, to calm herself, to just _live_ , without worrying about what might be waiting for her.

But she’s been through too much in too little time to ever believe that kind of peace is meant for her.

“Like I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop.” Eres had tried to ignore the weight on her shoulders. She’d tried not to think too hard about it. But with nothing to do - with so much time to think and nothing to keep her mind occupied, she’d been able to think of nothing else for days. “It can’t stay like this for long. It never does. There’s always something on the horizon.”

“Hmm.” Serana hums, low under her breath, looking out toward the lake again.

Abruptly, she turns to her, reaching for her hand. “Let’s swim.”

“What?” Serana is waist-deep and tugging at her hand before she has the chance to back away from the bank. “Serana, that water is probably freezing.”

“It’s not that cold, you baby.” Serana tugs again. “I think there’s a cave under that cliff.”

Eres gives her a baffled look, which just gives Serana the opportunity to tug her bodily into the water while she’s off guard. The cold shock of it makes her grip Serana’s hand so hard her own fingers cramp, and the vindictive side of her hopes it hurts just a little.

“You fucking—it’s _cold!_ ” How the hell could the lake even _be_ this cold when the air was so warm around it? Eres shivers, debating the idea of scrambling up the side of the bank and ditching Serana in the water alone. Serana tugs her deeper before she can manage it.

“I can see that.”

Eres looks up at her, frowning. Serana smirks, eyes flicking quickly down towards her chest. Eres scowls.

“Ass.” She shoves her. Serana doesn’t so much as stumble. “How do you know there’s a cave down there? And since when do you like to swim, anyways? What’s gotten into you?”

“I don’t.” Serana shrugs. “But I was hoping to distract you long enough to stop torturing yourself over what-ifs.” Serana pins her with a look and raises a brow. “Is it working?”

“That depends.”

“On?”

“On whether this cave of yours is worth swimming out into a freezing cold lake in the middle of the night.”

“It’s _really_ not that cold, Eres.”

It wasn’t, actually. Now that Eres is acclimated, the water is actually rather nice. That doesn’t mean she won’t complain about it for all she’s worth, though.

“It’s cold enough.” Eres says. “Now what about this cave?”

“Oh,” Serana looks toward the cliff jutting out into the lake, and points at the base of it. “Those look like the plants we saw in Darkfall, remember? They seem to grow underground.”

“…And?”

“And, they’re aboveground. Sort of.” Technically they were at the bottom of the lake, but Eres supposes that technically means they are on the surface ground-wise. Sort of. “And where there’s a few, there’s probably more. Which means there’s probably a cave around there somewhere.”

“And you think exploring a cave with no weapons or armor in the middle of the night, soaking wet, is a good idea?”

Serana shoots her a smile that’s a bit too cheeky for her liking. She ducks down quickly to press a kiss to Eres’ lips. “I’ll protect you, dear. Magic, and all.”

“Why didn’t you _magic_ us into the cave then, genius,” Eres mutters, but she follows. Because of course she does. Whatever happened to her common sense? She could swear she’d had some before she met Serana.

“You and I both know teleportation isn’t in my realm of expertise. That’s more up your alley these days.”

“That happened _once_ ,” Eres huffs. And she’s never been able to repeat it since. She’s tried. Multiple times. “It’s not something I can do on command.”

“Shame. I could do for a warm bed right about now.”

“And yet we’re in a lake.” Serana swims like she’s born to it, clothes and all. Eres rather feels like a floundering mess, but she does manage it.

They reach the cliff face in mere minutes, both of them, and Eres sighs when she looks down. She can’t see the bottom.

“Don’t tell me we’re going under.”

“Of course we are. Where do you think the cave is?”

“And what if there’s no air down there?” Eres asks. “You might be able to go without breathing, but I can’t.”

At least, she thinks she can’t. She’s not about to test it here, of all places. Maybe in a nice warm bath. With someone on standby.

Serana reaches up a hand to tap at the shell of her ear. “My hearing’s better than yours. I can hear echoes. Of water, specifically,” Serana says. “Against rock.”

“Like a hollow cave.” Eres says, and Serana nods.

“Are you going to trust me, or not?”

“I suppose,” Eres says, faux-begrudgingly. Serana ducks beneath the water, and Eres follows at her heels.

Serana, as in most things physical, is faster than she is - but she’s patient, and moves instead at a pace just slightly faster than Eres herself, guiding her through the pitch-dark of the deep water below and into the cool waters of a hollow hidden well below the surface in the cliff face they’d seen above.

The water drops several degrees in temperature through that hollow entrance, and several more still before Eres’ head breaches the surface of the hollowed-out cavern within.

“Fuck that’s c-cold.”

“Sorry,” Serana says, and she does sound apologetic. “I didn’t realize it would get so cold.” She reaches the edge of the cavern floor jutting out from the walls first, and helps Eres to lift herself out before she moves to climb up on her own. “It’s beautiful here, though.”

Eres turns to sit at the edge, and she has to admit she’s right - the walls are dotted with the glow of the strange, luminated plants they’d once seen the likes of in Darkfall Cave. The reflection of the light off the rippling water below paints beams of multi-colored light against dark, jagged walls above their heads. It’s their personal aurora, and only the two of them will ever witness it.

“At least I’ll freeze to death in style,” Eres jokes dryly, to be met with an even drier look from Serana.

“Get your feet out of the water and maybe you’d warm up.”

Eres does, pushing herself back to lean against the far wall of the cave behind them. “Are you offering to help?”

Serana meets her joke with not even a trace of mirth. “Don’t tempt me,” she says plainly. “We haven’t had any time alone for weeks now.”

“I probably look like a drowned rat.” Self-consciously, Eres brushes her hands through her hair, leaning over to wring the water from the ends of it. “I’m not that tempting.”

“You’re always tempting,” Serana replies, and it doesn’t even sound like she thought about it. She even looks like she means it.

“We’re both soaking wet,” Eres says, and then Serana smirks, quirking a brow. “When did you get so perverted?”

Serana lets out a forlorn sigh. “Probably around the same time I stopped being able to kiss my girlfriend whenever I wanted to.” Eres looks at her, and Serana raises a brow. “What?”

“Nothing.” Eres looks back toward the cave walls, hiding a smile. “I just think that’s the first time you’ve actually called me that.”

“Hmm…” A hand closes around her elbow and tugs, and Eres shifts closer without complaint. “I don’t have anything as romantic as _vhenan_ , I’m afraid.”

“I like it when you call me ‘dear’,” Eres admits, shifting to straddle her. It’s so much easier to kiss her when she doesn’t have to tiptoe just to reach her.

“Really?” Serana looks at her with some measure of surprise.

“It suits you.” Eres bites back the urge to grin at her. “Very archaic.”

Serana scowls. Chuckling, Eres holds her face in her hands and kisses the scowl away.

“I’ll have you know it was all the rage when I was growing up,” Serana argues, very matter-of-factly. “That and ‘darling’.”

“Ooh,” Eres coos. “ _Darling_. I like that one.”

“I’m starting to think you’re older than I am.”

“Hush, it’s romantic.” Eres also just happens to find it rather cute - how very old-timey Serana could be at times.

“Yes, dear,” Serana drawls, and she smiles into the kiss Eres presses to her lips.

Eres breathes to steady herself as Serana ducks her head to press a kiss against the sensitive skin of her neck. Skin that even now is still mottled and bruised around the edges from Serana’s last feeding from her - nearly three weeks ago, now. It doesn’t hurt when Serana kisses her there. To the contrary, the touch of her lips the sends a jolt of electricity down her spine; a warm pleasant buzz erupting around the old, sluggishly healing wound.

“Hungry?”

Serana hums into her neck. “A little,” she admits. “But I don’t feel like dragging you out of the lake.”

“Whose fault is that?” She mutters, feeling a little insulted despite herself. It’s not _her_ fault that a feeding is so exhausting for her. It’s not like she’s _losing blood_ or anything. “Maybe you shouldn’t take so much next time.”

Serana chuckles. “Maybe you shouldn’t be so tempting.” If nothing else, at least Serana has gotten over the guilt of it. At least so long as it gives her the opportunity to tease Eres, it seems. “The little noises you make…”

The sharp point of fangs brush against the skin of her neck, promising danger and all manner of things that shouldn’t excite her the way it does. Eres shivers all the same, humming low in the back of her throat, almost tempted to ask her to feed anyway.

They’ve been careful to space them out - not least because Eres does need to recover the lost blood before Serana can feed again, but also because they both remember the first time, and that kind of thing can’t really be done in the company of others. The bite being so inherently sexual means they’ve had little chance for it on the road with both Isran and Auria, and Serana has had to make do with her usual hunting since they’d left Fellburg nearly a month ago.

“Like that one,” Serana says, when Eres hums. A touch snakes its way up her thigh; a brush of a hand against her center that makes her gasp. “And that one,” Serana murmurs into her ear, and kisses her.

Eres settles into Serana’s lap, sighing into her mouth. It might have been embarrassing, how easy she is for her, had it not been so long since the last time. The moment they get to Falinesti, Eres doesn’t plan on leaving their room for a week. It’s been nearly a month since their first time, and this is only the second time since then that they’ve managed to have any chance to enjoy their newfound intimacy. The first had been a stolen moment in a tiny little room at a tavern in a backwater town just north of Kvatch, nearly two weeks ago.

It has been far too long since they last had a moment to themselves. Eres does not know how she had managed it before - to go so long loving her, without knowing the taste of her lips, or the heat of her touch. That first night together, in this way, in this manner, had been an awakening.

If she had thought the yearning would cease once they had come together, she had been sorely mistaken. That yearning has only shifted into something more physical, into a craving for a kind of intimacy that she had not known could be so grand.

Serana’s hand curls into her. Eres braces a hand against the cave wall behind Serana’s head, grasping for leverage, for a measure of control she doesn’t quite have when Serana touches her.

Serana likes to see her this way, she thinks—lost in herself, lost in them, lost in the touch of her—undone by her in ways she could not have imagined possible.

Eres stops. For a moment, Serana does not, and Eres doesn’t even feel it. Something dark and sinuous sprouts from the cave wall between her fingers, coiling around her wrist.

“Stop,” she whispers, more to it than Serana.

Serana freezes, stilling beneath her. Eres feels her hand move as though from a great distance, until both of them alight, delicate and cautious, upon her hips. “Eres?”

The coiling darkness twines around her fingers, slithering past her wrist.

 _“Stop it,”_ Eres hisses, closing her eyes tight against the sight of it. It doesn’t go away. She can still feel it, the wrongness of it, the sickness of it, the way it digs into her skin. Little pinpricks of goosebumps where it touches her, little needles of a jittery fear that sinks its claws deep and climbs its way up her arm to her spine.

Eres is in the water beneath the pond at Bruiant Mansion, with water in her lungs and coiled, dark snakes around her limbs tugging her down, down, down—

“Eres, _hey_ ,” her head moves, directed by Serana’s hand, and Eres sees red. Not the red of blood or the Stone but Serana. Serana’s eyes, fixed upon hers, swimming with concern. Eres can almost feel it recede as her focus shifts, peeling reluctantly away from her skin without her fixed attention. “Are you okay?”

Serana’s other hand raises to join the first, cupping Eres’ face in her hands, far more gently than Eres thinks she can handle just then.

Serana must see it in her face somewhere, for she asks, “What happened?”

“I…” Eres swallows. She looks back at her hand, but is the same as it has always been. Her hand is just a hand. The wall is just a wall. There is only rock beneath her fingertips, a bit slick to the touch. She pulls her hand away, rubs the slickness between her fingers. Examines it. Holds her hand in front of her face as though she’s never seen it before.

“It’s water,” Serana says, her voice soft and soothing - not judgmental. She doesn’t understand, but she’s trying. Eres doesn’t understand, and she’s given up. “It’s just water, Eres.”

Eres shivers. The air feels colder than she remembered it being before.

“We have to go.” Her voice comes out hoarse, hoarser than it has any right to be. She stands too quickly, sudden nausea roiling in her stomach. She holds it back, hurrying to fix her tunic and leggings even as she urges Serana to get up. “We need to leave now.”

Serana stands. She turns her head, eyes roving up the length of the wall she’d sat against, eyes narrowed. Her lips curl into a frown, but by the time she has looked back at Eres, she has wiped it from her face.

Eres knows she doesn’t see it. That’s part of the problem.

“…Okay,” is all that Serana says, though, and she follows Eres with a bit less urgency than Eres would like. “It wasn’t me, was it?” Serana asks, hesitant, because she must.

“No. No,” Eres says, shaking her head. She looks at Serana and shakes her head again. “No, no—no, it wasn’t you.”

Serana’s brow raise. “That’s a lot of no’s, Eres.”

“No,” Eres says, only once this time, because it wasn’t. It hadn’t been Serana—of course not. It could never have been her. “We just need to go.”

“Okay,” Serana says, and that is that.

* * *

Serana had not been foolish enough to think that Eres’ odd behavior would stop once she’d returned from Sovngarde.

There had been a moment, at the Throat of the World at High Hrothgar, when she had seen Eres standing there, that there had been a brief glimmer of hope. That she had thought, _finally_ , it was all over. Eres would recover. She would be fine. She was alive, and well, and they were together, and that was more than Serana had hoped for even just hours before that moment. Hours before, when she had come to Eres’ room with the knowledge that she would not be there, with the thought that she may not have even lived to see her twenty-fifth birthday.

In that moment, at the first sight of her, all of that doubt and fear and grief had been pushed away. Eres had done it. She had saved the world, _again_ , and things would be — maybe not perfect, now, but better.

At first, Serana had explained away that sun-brightness as perhaps a remnant of whatever portal or means that Eres had used to return to Nirn. That maybe it had simply been the effect of a body returning from Sovngarde, alive, and that it would mean nothing.

Then there had been the teleportation. Then there had been the odd shiftiness regarding what had happened in Sovngarde. Then there had been that strange light she had seen beneath Eres’ skin, a glimpse that had vanished as quickly as she had seen it.

Then there had been the moments where Eres would seem a world and a half away, lost in thought, lost in something that Serana could not know or see. It had not been cause for concern, at first.

Eres had just come back from Sovngarde. She’d defeated Alduin, and set the world to rights again, and met a _Goddess_ , apparently. It was only to be expected that she would be a bit out of sorts for a while.

But there had been times where it seemed that Eres had wanted to tell her something, had wanted to explain, and had decided against it in the last moment. There was something, Serana knew, that Eres was hiding. That she had not told anyone. Not even her. Something that weighed on her. Something that caused her to get that faraway look in her eyes sometimes.

Serana would give it time, she had decided. She would wait until Eres was ready to tell her. Until Eres could.

And now this.

Eres, frazzled on the shore of the lake, drenched and shivering despite the warm mugginess of the night air with something haunted in her eyes. Eres speaking to things that Serana couldn’t see. Fearing things that she couldn’t see.

And not speaking a word of it.

“Eres,” Serana starts, watching as the girl wrings out the ends of her hair with hands that tremble. “What happened back there?”

Eres’ eyes shift towards the cliff. Towards the cave they’d left behind. Along with the only solitude they’d managed to have in weeks.

“I—” Eres shifts on her feet. Her brows furrow. “I don’t know.”

“You don’t know?” Serana asks. _Or you don_ _’t want to tell me?_ She thinks, but doesn’t say.

Eres grabs her hand, tugs her towards the trees. “I don’t know, just—” she breathes, shallow and shuddering. “I need to talk to Auria.”

“Auria?” Serana looks back towards the lake, and still doesn’t know what the hell happened. Or what Auria would have to do with it.

“She might know something.”

Serana stops walking. “Might know something about what?”

“About—” Eres stops, too, turning to face her. She shifts uneasily on her feet, as though even the act of standing still somehow troubles her. “There was something in there.”

Serana frowns. “I imagine there’s a lot of things living in those caves—”

“Not—” Eres raises a hand. For the space of a breath, she holds herself with her eyes closed, biting at her lower lip as though she has to keep herself from shouting at her. Serana hears the racing of her heart, fluttering and jittery with a lingering panic that has not yet faded. The air around her has the tiniest, sickly-sweet tang of fear. The smell of it on Eres sickens and worries her in equal measure. “Not like that. Not—not like us, or, or animals, or—fish, or whatever. Just—something else. Something…”

Eres’ gaze slides back to the lake with such wariness that Serana almost expects something to leap out of it.

“It—it felt sick.”

“Sick,” Serana repeats, not quite understanding.

“Like if you could give sickness or plague a physical form, it—that would be it. Like—like darkness, amplified, like—like it could swallow the light if it wanted to.” As if reminded that she had been trying to get away from it, Eres breaks into a brisk walk yet again, marching for the camp.

“Was this something you saw or felt?”

“Both,” Eres says shortly. She marches onward. Serana follows, as she always does. As she always will. A frown pulls at her lips.

“And you think Auria will know something about it?”

“I don’t know. Maybe,” Eres throws her hands up, huffing. “Who else do we know that knows anything about this place?”

“I don’t know that your mother’s ever been in that particular cave before.”

“There could be legends, or something. Folk tales. Maybe this is something they know about here, and we don’t, and that’s why we don’t know what it is.” Serana supposes that’s possible, but if it was something real and tangible that could have spawned such things - shouldn’t she have seen and felt it, too?

Serana can see the low light of the camp’s fire not far away from them, now. She doesn’t want to ask. She knows how it will sound. But she has to.

“Eres,” she says, gentling her voice to soften the question before she asks it. “Are you sure this isn’t just—some kind of remnant left over? From Sovngarde?” She asks, a bit more pointedly than she had intended to.

Eres stops. For a moment, she just looks up at her, and Serana can’t quite read the expression on her face, but she knows Eres well enough to know that if she’s hiding her expression, it’s nothing good.

“So, what,” Eres asks, voice flat, “you think I’m just delusional, now?”

“That’s not what I said,” Serana says, calling up every ounce of patience she has. “I don’t think you’re delusional. I’m just saying, you’ve been through a lot. And that sometimes it has lasting effects. Like—”

“Delusions.”

“Flashbacks,” Serana corrects, holding her gaze. Eres’ temper might be rising, but she’s not going to feed it. “It happens to people all the time, and most of them haven’t been through even a fraction of what you have. This wasn’t like before. You’ve never— _talked_ to your.. Senses, before,” Serana says, a bit haltingly, unsure of what to call it. “It might be nothing.”

“Well, if it’s nothing, then Auria will have nothing to tell me. Problem solved.”

Serana hides a wince. If the tone of Eres’ voice is anything to go on, she’s just gotten madder.

“Even if it’s not nothing,” Serana keeps her tone as even as possible, “we’re supposed to be relaxing.”

“Oh, yes,” Eres says, and Serana braces. “Because diving into a freezing cold lake in the middle of the night is super relaxing.”

“It was before—”

“No!” Eres snaps at her, eyes flashing. “It wasn’t! It was cold! _I_ am cold! I’m _human_ , Serana—” Well, half human, technically, but Serana isn’t about to correct her just now. She’s quite certain that’s not the point. “I don’t deal with temperature changes like you do. I did it because I love you, not because it was a brilliant idea.”

“Okay,” Serana reaches for her. “Calm down.”

Eres smacks her hand away, snapping to point so aggressively at her that Serana almost bursts out laughing in her face. “Don’t you tell me to calm down!”

Serana can’t help it. She laughs.

“ _What_ is so funny to you?”

“I’m sorry,” Serana says, chuckling. She cups Eres’ face in her hands and leans down to kiss her. “I love you.”

Eres accepts the kiss, at least. Begrudgingly, it seems, but Serana doesn’t mind. “Why are you laughing at me?”

“Because you’re being ridiculous.” Eres’ sudden temper was absurd. Where had this come from?

“I’m ridiculous, now?” Maybe just then hadn’t been the best time to find humor in the situation. “I’m telling you that I felt something back there—”

“Yes, and that’s what worries me,” Serana responds, sobering. “I remember what happened the last time you felt something. I also remember we agreed that we wouldn’t get involved with anything going on down here. If you go off chasing after every weird feeling you get, we’ll never get any peace.”

When Eres’ brows snap together, Serana adds, “You never gave yourself time to recover from Coldharbour. You certainly haven’t given yourself enough time since Sovngarde. You still won’t even talk about it.”

Eres lets out a harsh sigh, closing her eyes. “I told you I _can_ _’t_ talk about it.”

“And what happened the last time you wouldn’t tell me about something?”

Eres’ expression darkens. Serana is not sure if it is better or worse that she seems too angry to wallow in the guilt she had expressed the last time they had this conversation. She hates to see Eres be so hard on herself, especially in a situation where, in Eres’ mind, Serana knew she had done it because she felt she had no other choice. Having Eres angry with her is not something she has ever wanted, but perhaps in a manner it is preferable to her guilt.

There was never going to be a way to confront Eres about Sovngarde that would not have put her on edge one way or another, but still, it must be said. Serana knows there is something about Sovngarde that Eres has hidden from them all, even her, and there is a part of her that worries after what it could mean. She may never rest easy until she knows what it might be.

“That’s different.”

“Is it?” Serana asks, frowning. There’s no stopping this carriage now—she may as well get on. “Are you telling me that you won’t go throwing yourself into whatever crisis you manage to find down here? I know you, Eres. You can’t help yourself.”

“What do you expect me to do, Serana? Just pretend that I don’t see it? Let people die just so I don’t have to deal with it?”

“We don’t know that anyone’s dying,” Serana says, trying to reason with her.

“We don’t know that they aren’t, either,” Eres argues. “Which is why I need to talk to Auria about it, so we can figure out—”

“So we can figure out what’s going on, so that you can go off and run headlong into the first fight you see. As you do.” 

“Do you think I _like_ being this way?” The hurt in Eres’ eyes stills her. “Do you think I like having omens and portents thrown at me? Do you think I wake up in the morning and just decide to find a way to get myself killed somehow?”

“You know I don’t,” Serana sighs. This is not how she had seen this night ending, but she supposes that this conversation would have happened, eventually. They had been avoiding it long enough. “But you have this way of making everyone else’s problems your own. And as noble as that might be, if you spend your entire life trying to take care of everyone else before yourself, you’ll never see the end of it. There’s always going to be someone needing help. There’s always going to be just one more crisis, just one more problem you have to solve before you can rest, and before you know it, you’ll have given so much of yourself to other people that you’ll have nothing left.”

Eres quiets. Serana knows, behind her ire, that Eres knows that she’s right. Eres herself has spoken about how she has lived much of her life serving others instead of herself. She knows it to be true as much as Serana does.

“This is killing you, Eres.”

Eres sighs, averting her gaze. “Something is always killing me,” she mutters.

“That’s why you need to take it easy and let other people deal with it for a change.”

“What else am I supposed to do, if I keep seeing these things?” Eres asks her.

“Just because you’re the one who sees the problem first doesn’t mean that you’re the only person who can deal with it,” Serana tells her. “We can talk to Auria about it. We can figure out what’s going on with this thing you sensed, and then we can hand it off to someone else who knows more about it. This doesn’t have to be _your_ fight. I’m sure there’s no shortage of people who actually live here who wouldn’t think twice about giving their lives to protect it, if that’s what it came down to. It doesn’t have to be you. Let someone else handle things for a change.”

For a moment, when Eres looks away, Serana almost thinks she’s gotten through to her. For a moment, she’d thought - maybe, _maybe_ , Eres would listen.

But then Eres turns back to her, with an expression so fractured with emotion that Serana’s breath catches in her throat.

“I _can_ _’t,_ ” Eres whispers.

“You _can_ , Eres. You just have to—to let it _go_ , for once. I know that’s easier said than done, especially for you, but—”

“It’s not that simple,” Eres says, and the look she directs at Serana is almost pitying. It’s too familiar. It reminds Serana too much of how she had looked just before they’d reached Whiterun. Just before Eres had left her. “I don’t have a choice.”

“What do you mean, you don’t have a choice? Is someone holding you at sword-point I don’t know about?”

Eres sighs. “There’s always a cost, Serana.”

“A cost for _what_?”

“For _me_ ,” Eres hisses. “For all of this. Did you think there wouldn’t be a price to pay for me coming back here after going to Sovngarde? Did you think that everything would just go back to the way it was before?”

“I didn’t know what to think,” Serana says, voice tight, “because you won’t even talk about what happened in Sovngarde. You haven’t told anyone what happened there. How are we supposed to know any of that?”

“Because I’m not allowed to tell you everything. There are rules!”

“Rules? Whose rules?”

“The _Gods_ _’_ rules, Serana, who do you think?” Eres glares at her.

“The Gods.” Serana repeats. “The Gods’ rules for what?”

“For me coming back.” Eres braces her hands on her hips, sighing.

“Why would there be rules for you coming back? You belong here, Eres.” Eres looks away from her. Serana’s frown deepens. “You belong _here_ ,” she repeats firmly, “not up there.”

“It’s—” Eres doesn’t look at her, biting at her lower lip. Serana watches her, stunned by the indecision she sees in her. What could have happened in Sovngarde that would make Eres doubt her place here, on Nirn? With her? With all of them? “It’s complicated.”

“Complicated,” Serana braces her hands on her own hips, trying to ignore the sinking feeling in her stomach. “Complicated, _how_?”

Eres sighs, turning her eyes to the ground between them. “I made a deal.”

“A deal.”

“You could call it that, yeah,” Eres says, tossing up one hand. She’s still not being completely truthful. Serana would have to be blind and dumb not to see it, but it’s something closer to the truth than she’s gotten up to now. “Sure. A deal.”

“A deal for what, exactly? And what did you get out of this?”

“I lived.” Eres says simply. “I got to live, and I got to come back here. To be with you.”

“That’s—” Serana shakes her head. Something isn’t adding up. Something doesn’t make sense. “You already had that, Eres. Did you die in Sovngarde, or something? Did they—did they resurrect you, and that’s why you had to make this deal?”

Eres shakes her head, and Serana’s mind struggles to wrap around the concept.

“What could have possibly possessed you to make a deal with the Gods? The same Gods who—who abandoned you. Who used you. You told me yourself that Stendarr abandoned you in Coldharbour, and they used you against Alduin—and you go and decide to hand yourself to them on a leash? What were you thinking?”

“I was thinking of _you_ , Serana!” Eres snaps at her, eyes blazing. “You keep—you keep acting like there was a better option I could have taken. There was only one way out! There was only one way I walked out of there alive. I didn’t have any other choice, and you’re blaming _me,_ when _you_ are the reason I was in that situation to begin with!”

Serana reels back, straightening. “What the hell does that mean?”

“It means exactly what it sounds like. It was all you.” The look Eres sends her way is something far too close to scorn. “Everything that’s happened to me—the deal I made? The fact that I _needed_ to do it at all? I never would’ve needed to if I hadn’t gone to Coldharbour. For you. I sacrificed myself for you. I told you that. I told you I went to Coldharbour because he wanted _you_ , and I went in your place. The Dragon Breaks, the comas, the visions, what I had to do in Sovngarde just to get out alive so I didn’t end up like Septimus? It all comes back to you. You’re the reason. You’re the catalyst. _You_ are the reason I am the way I am. Every time you look at me and think I’m crazy, or I’m losing my mind, or I just won’t give it up or quit while I’m ahead, or I’m getting too in over my head or—or you think I willingly put myself on a _leash_ just for the fun of it? It’s you. If you want someone to blame for that, it’s you. It’s _you_.”

“I—” Serana doesn’t even hear the rustle of approaching footsteps.

“And by the way,” Eres adds, sneering, “ _your_ soul was part of the deal, too. So that’s twice now I’ve saved you from him—”

“Hey! _Hey!_ ” Isran stomps toward them, his brow wrinkled into a stern, no-nonsense scowl. But it is Eres he approaches, not Serana. “That’s enough, Eres. Walk away.” He takes her by the shoulders, tries to steer her away, but not before Eres manages one last parting shot.

“You’re welcome, Serana,” Eres says coldly, eyes hard.

“ _Eres_ , let’s _go_ ,” Isran actually shoves her, pushing hard on her shoulders until she stumbles and turns with the force of it, until Isran is pushing hard at her back to move her back towards the camp. Away from Serana. “You’ve said enough.”

“Let _go_ of me,” Serana hears Eres snap at Isran, too, but it does little to make her feel any better.

“Serana.” A hand, gentle and warm, lands upon her back. Auria looks at her with far more sympathy than she feels like she deserves, just then. “Come. You mustn’t take her words to heart.”

Serana presses her hands to her face, not because she feels like she may cry, but quite the opposite. Her mind feels like a fog, and she still can’t quite wrap her mind around what’s just happened. Eres had never spoken to her that way. Never spoken to _anyone_ that way, that Serana could remember, outside of an enemy.

How long had Eres blamed her? How long had she been harboring so much anger against her?

“You heard what she said,” Serana manages. She drags her hands down her face, but it does nothing to help organize her thoughts. “She thinks it’s my fault. It _is_ my fault,” she amends, the truth of it sinking in. “This all happened because of me.”

“Serana,” Auria eyes her as only a mother could, with gentle reproach. “You know how Eresael is, better than any of us. She was upset, and she let her temper get the better of her. She said things, hurtful things,” Auria acknowledges, “and in a few hours, when she calms, she will come to regret them. I’m sure Eresael doesn’t blame you. She loves you.”

Serana sighs. “How much did you hear?”

“Enough,” Auria admits. “Enough that I hoped you would get everything in the open and resolve this…disagreement,” Auria says haltingly. “It is true that Eresael has been less than forthcoming of late. I had hoped, if anyone, she would open up to you. In all honesty, I had believed she would have done so long before now. It seems there was more behind her silence than we knew. I imagine this,” she gestures towards the silhouette of Eres, stalking to the camp with Isran on her heels, “has been building up for quite some time.”

“Yeah,” Serana nods. She feels a bit ill. “I imagine it has. If—since Coldharbour…”

“Serana, you know better.” Auria tuts. “I think you know as well as I do that it is the situation that Eres is more frustrated with. However,” she adds, looking away from her, and she sighs.

“However…?” Serana prompts. “What?”

“However,” Auria continues, and she looks at her with some level of apology in her eyes. “Resentment has a way of building when one feels as though their deeds have gone unappreciated. Even when it comes to those we love. In some cases, _especially_ when it comes to those we love - because we expect them to take more notice than others. I am not saying you do not appreciate her, but, in this specific case… You are similar in many ways, but not in this. She has a bit of a martyr complex, if you haven’t noticed.”

Serana barks out a laugh, surprising even herself.

“Yeah,” she says, chuckling darkly, “I’ve noticed.” How could she not? “I just had never seen it that way.”

“Hush,” Auria scolds her. “Eresael would likely have made the same decisions whether you were involved or not. Martyrs will do as they will, one way or another. If not for you, then for someone else. They always put others first. Whether that is a lover, or family, or friends—or even strangers. They value their own lives below that of those around them, and so,” Auria shrugs helplessly, “they see their own sacrifice as an acceptable cost for saving the lives of others. Eresael is that way, and likely always will be. I could not say whether she was this way as a child, but it is likely that she was. These kinds of mindsets appear in childhood. Though of course, with less drastic consequences.”

“You are not to blame, Serana,” Auria continues, her voice as gentle as if she had been talking to her own daughter instead of Serana. “Yes, she sacrificed herself for you - but it was her decision to do so. In her mind, she knows this. Not right now, perhaps, not while she’s angry with you, not while she’s feeling resentful in the moment - but when her mind clears, she will know. And I imagine she will regret this when the time comes. She will apologize to you for the things she said to you tonight. I will make sure of it, if nothing else.”

Serana shakes her head, running a hand through her hair. “Somehow, I feel like I should be the one apologizing.”

“You could,” Auria agrees. “It may go some way in helping her to understand that you do appreciate what she has done for you—for all of us—even if you don’t agree with her methods. I think that would go a long way in soothing her, in the end. But,” Auria eyes her sharply. “You were not at fault tonight. This,” she gestures vaguely, “was her fault. She took her frustration out on you. You would be well within your rights to feel wronged. Do not accept the blame for everything simply because of guilt, or wanting to resolve things more quickly. That will do nothing but swap sides, and the cycle would merely begin anew. Resolve this like adults. Communication and compromise is fundamental for any healthy relationship.”

“Yes, Mother,” Serana drawls. It’s easier to be sarcastic than openly grateful with Auria. Or with anyone presenting themselves as a parental figure. Serana just doesn’t _do_ parental affection. It’s not a thing she knows how to do.

Auria reads her all the same, quirking a brow at her with a satisfied smile. “That is _Maman_ to you,” she corrects primly. “You are not special. I have the same expectations for you as I do for Eresael.”

“I think I’ll stick with Auria.” Serana doesn’t even call her own mother so familiar a term. She can hardly do so with Auria.

“We shall see,” Auria says, seeming all too confident that Serana will change her mind one day. She pats Serana’s arm gently. “You think the world of Eresael, but she is not infallible. Her temper is merely one of many, _many_ flaws.”

Serana quirks a brow, amused despite herself. “That many?”

Auria tuts, shaking her head. “Her stubbornness alone counts for at least one hundred.”

Serana smothers a laugh behind a cough. It feels a bit wrong to find it funny, given the situation.

“Now, come,” Auria says. “I will make tea, and you—you can drink tea, can you not? Or is it only wine?”

“Tea is fine,” Serana says, shrugging. “Doesn’t taste like much, though.” It’s not all so different from drinking water, but sometimes the warmth of it is pleasant enough.

“Well, I’m afraid I don’t have any blood on offer, so you will have to make do. We will let Isran deal with the brat.”

Serana snorts, chuckling, and follows Auria dutifully back to camp. For perhaps the first time since setting off on this trip, she is glad for Auria and Isran. She’s not sure how that argument might have gone, had it been only Eres and herself. And certainly, she would not have recovered so quickly from the shock of it all.

Auria is not perfect, by any means, but—having someone like her to talk to, or rather to talk at her, like a mother would, is more helpful than Serana would have expected. She imagines Eres must be getting a similar talk from Isran.

Looking across the camp, she sees them, sitting against the wide trunk of a tree at the very edge of camp. There’s still a thunderous look on Eres’ face, still just as angry as she had been before, but it is something in the distance she glares at now, rather than Serana herself. Isran sits silently next to her, arms crossed over his chest. Waiting. He looks not unlike a bodyguard there beside her, but Serana can guess at his intentions.

Isran will wait until Eres has calmed before attempting to talk to her. In the meantime, he’ll sit with her - likely to keep her from wandering off somewhere to sulk, or perhaps coming at Serana again in her still simmering anger.

Serana does not know if Isran will be any more successful than she had been, but perhaps it is a parent’s touch that Eres needs just now, rather than a girlfriend’s. When she is calm again, Serana tells herself, they will talk about it. More calmly, this time, with less yelling. And less blaming. On both their parts.

When she replays the argument in her head, she can hear the underlying blame in her own voice - the judgment she hadn’t spoken aloud in quite so many terms, but that would have been clear to Eres herself. Perhaps her own approach could have been better, no matter what Auria had said.

“I imagine we will catch up with the tail end of the Migration today,” Auria muses, as she pulls out the kettle. She talks idly as she works, not expecting a response. Somehow it’s soothing rather than annoying. “It is quite a sight to see. Perhaps it will be enough to distract you from what happened tonight, hm?”

“Perhaps,” Serana cannot help the way her eyes are drawn to Eres, all the same. When they get to Falinesti, they will have to make time just to themselves.

Serana does not doubt the love between them, and never could - but with Sovngarde, and all that happened in both the events leading up to it, and the aftermath itself, they still have work to do. They just need time to work on building that trust again. Time to truly come together as strong as they had been before, with no doubts on either side.

* * *

Isran waits until the heat of anger in Eres’ eyes dies down. He waits until she hugs her knees to her chest, and turns quiet and contemplative, and then he waits longer still.

He waits until she straightens, leaning back against the tree again, hands in her lap. He waits until the anger in her eyes turns to contemplation, to regret, and then to silent, hopeless resignation - and only then does he speak.

“Eres.” She does not answer him. She doesn’t so much as look at him. But she blinks, and so he knows she has heard him, even as her gaze remains unfocused and faraway. “You want to tell me what that was all about?”

“No.” Eres’ voice comes out hollow and brittle, frayed around the edges. She doesn’t cry - Isran thinks she is too angry for tears. First, that anger had been directed at Serana.

Now, he’s certain that anger is directed at herself.

“Tell me anyways.” Auria had brought them tea almost an hour ago. Eres hadn’t touched it. His is long cold now, but he drinks it. With the rising sun above, the forest has begun to heat, and the thought of drinking hot tea is no longer as appealing as it had been earlier. A quick glance at the sky through the trees confirms what he had suspected the night before - the clouds that had been gathering before sunset have darkened as the air warms. They’re like to see another storm today.

“I don’t want to talk about it.”

“The fight?” He asks. “Or Sovngarde?” When Eres doesn’t respond, he prods her again. She is as stubborn as a mule, this one. “Eres—”

Eres takes a breath. She breathes in such a way that Isran almost expects to see tears when he looks at her, but there are none to be seen. He gives her the moment. Eres has always been a rather private girl. If she needs a moment more to collect herself, then, well—he supposes he can be patient. It’s not as though they’re on a deadline.

Isran takes another sip of his tea. The leaves above rustle. He looks up, squinting towards the canopies. When the wind blows, the tops of the trees sway with it, ominous and telling.

He’ll have to get with Auria, see if she knows somewhere they might bunker down close by. They’ve been caught unprepared in one too many downpours already. He’d like to avoid being out in the open for this one.

Eres breathes. Isran waits. Across the camp, Auria turns her head towards the sky, squinting upward with her mouth pursed. She frowns. She stands up, and she keeps looking toward the sky, and she frowns deeper. Something rumbles in the distance.

“Hmm…” Isran grumbles, not pleased with the troubled expression on Auria’s face. It may already be too late for them to find shelter. “Looks like we’ve got another big storm coming.” He sighs, runs a hand over his bald head. His skin is starting to dry out from all the damn rain in this godforsaken forest. Damn migrating cities. Who the hell thought they were a good idea? “Might want to get out your cloak again—”

“I killed my father.”

Isran stills. Of all the things he had expected that Eres would say when she finally decided to speak to him, that had not been one of them. He lowers his hand again, draping it over a raised knee.

“I was…under the impression he was already dead,” Isran says slowly. “Or do you mean before?” Had Eres been the one to kill her father? Could that have been the case, and she’d forgotten it?

“No,” Eres says, voice hushed. “In Sovngarde.” She turns her head to look at him. Her gaze looks as hollow as her voice sounds, and he’s never seen the like of it before on her, even at the worst of times. He hopes, after this is done, that he will never see it again. “I killed him again.”

He had seen looks like that when he’d been a soldier. Battle-shocked men, dead-eyed and unseeing, with distant gazes and distant voices, present in body but not in mind.

Isran ignores the low rumble of approaching thunder. If getting Eres to talk about this means he has to sit on his ass in the middle of a storm, then well—he supposes he’s got to do it. He can’t see Eres talking to Auria about it, and clearly, she hadn’t been talking to Serana about it either.

“I imagine you had your reasons.”

“He asked me to.” Eres shrugs, helplessly. Closes her eyes and shakes her head like it couldn’t be helped. “He was in the Valley. He should’ve stayed there. It was his punishment,” Eres says, “for who he was. To spend his eternity there. Wandering. Suffering for the life he lived.”

Isran nods. He’s not especially familiar with the Sovngarde myths, but he knows enough of it to get by. “And he asked you to free him from it.”

“Yeah.”

“And you did it.”

Eres nods. “Yeah,” she says, dropping her gaze. She sighs, looks down at her hands clasped in her lap. “Yeah. Except I did more than just kill him. I took his soul.” Isran raises his brows. He hadn’t known Eres could do that. Perhaps it was something she could only do in Sovngarde? He sure as hell hoped so. “I removed him from the world entirely. There’s nothing left of him.”

“I see,” Isran says, because he’s not quite sure what else to say to that. “And… You regret it?”

“Maybe.” Eres shakes her head. “I don’t know. I shouldn’t. I shouldn’t care.”

“He was your father,” Isran says. “Even if he wasn’t the greatest man. It’s nothing against you if you still cared for him in some way, Eres. It’s alright to grieve him.”

“He doesn’t deserve my grief,” Eres mutters. “He never did, and yet—” she shakes her head, scoffing.

“Have you talked to Serana about this?” Isran asks her. If anyone could understand what Eres was going through, hell—why wouldn’t it be the one person she knew who had also killed her own father? He couldn’t understand why she’d keep it to herself, knowing Serana would be in a unique position to understand her.

“Serana was ready to kill Harkon herself months before we ever confronted him. There wasn’t any love lost between them. Serana doesn’t regret killing him, even though I was the one who forced her hand. Even though it’s because of me that she had to kill him herself. How could I go to her, crying about the fact that I had to kill a man who was already dead to begin with?”

“The two of you are different people. You deal with things differently. Serana had a different relationship with her father, I assume, than you did with yours.” He doesn’t know enough about Harkon, but he can guess. He knows enough about where vampires come from to be able to guess with reasonable accuracy. Not that he ever likes to think about it. It just makes him wish he’d been the one to kill Harkon instead. “She could still understand your position better than any of us could.”

Eres shakes her head. “It doesn’t matter, anyways.”

“It did matter to you, clearly.” Isran sighs as he sees Eres climb to her feet, and follows her to stand. “I might be an old man, but I can still see pretty damn well, Eres. And I can see that this—all of this shit with Sovngarde, and what happened with your father, and whatever else happened in there that you don’t want to tell us about—it’s been hard on you. It’s been dragging you down since you got back, keeping this all to yourself. It was only a matter of time before you blew up on someone. It just happened to be Serana this time. You need to talk to her - talk this through. And then you need to find someone to talk to, period. Doesn’t have to be her. Doesn’t even have to be one of us. But somebody. You need to work this out before you end up snapping on someone else in a way you can’t recover from.”

“I know, Isran.” Eres sighs, pulling on her cloak like she means to hide in it. “We should get going. It’s going to storm.”

Isran looks across camp. Serana and Auria have already packed up most of it. It won’t take them long to gather the rest of their things and go.

“Eres. About Serana—”

“I _know_ , Isran. I know I fucked up.” Eres catches his eye, and he still sees that same resignation on her face as before. “I’m not stupid. This is why I don’t—” she sighs, drops her eyes, shifts uncertainly on her feet. “This is why I avoid people when I’m angry. I’m just like him.”

Isran knows who she’s talking about. He doesn’t need to ask. He also doesn’t need to have known the man to know she’s wrong.

“Thought you said you weren’t stupid.”

Her eyes narrow.

“You’re not your father, Eres. You’re nothing like him.”

“How would you know?” Eres mutters, turning away from him.

“Because you’re afraid of becoming him.” Isran has the satisfaction of watching her turn back to face him, frowning. “That’s how I know. You made a mistake. It happens. You let your temper get the better of you. That happens. You argued with Serana - that’s going to happen. Do you think there’s any couple out there who hasn’t argued a few times here and there? Who hasn’t said something they regretted before?” He doesn’t let her try to rationalize it.

“What about those two back at Fellburg. The farmer boy and his wife - Yosef. And Johanna. You think their relationship is perfect? Never had an argument?”

“I don’t know, Isran. I’m hardly ever there.” Eres shakes her head. “But I’ve never seen it. They love each other too much.”

Isran actually laughs. Foolish, foolish girl. Sometimes, he’s able to forget just how young Eres is. A girl with that kind of power, shouldering the kind of responsibilities she’s shouldered – he’s often looked at her more as an equal than anything else.

Conversations like these remind him that Eres is still ignorant, still learning, still growing up. Still so very, very young.

There are things she doesn’t know, misconceptions she has that are almost childlike in their naivete. Eres had unrealistic expectations for herself, for others, for many things – in the way that only a young person could, with the lack of experience to inform their beliefs.

Eres would learn, but she would need good teachers. People who could temper her expectations and guide her down the right paths.

He supposes he’s one of those people now. He’s still not even sure if he’s cut out for it, but hell. He’ll try.

“People who love each other fight sometimes, too. They fought. You weren’t around to see it. It was after you left. After the attack.”

He’s not a damn therapist, but he knows Eres well enough to know what might be going through her mind, even if her words hadn’t told him. The damn girl thinks she’s ruined it for one bad night.

“After Yosef blamed you. Johanna tore into that man like you wouldn’t believe, and he was just angry enough to return the favor. That little fight with you and Serana is a mild disagreement compared to the row the two of them had that day. Your boy slept in the study for damn near a full week, as I heard it. But they sat down like adults and talked it through.”

“That’s what you do, Eres.” He tells her. He doesn’t imagine she’ll listen right away, not when she’s feeling sorry for herself. But it will plant a seed, at the very least, and that’s all he needs for the moment. “You sit down, you talk about it, and you’re better for it. Stronger for it. It’s not the end of the world.”

“Didn’t know you cared.” Eres regards him with something bordering on suspicion. “This isn’t like you.”

“This isn’t like you,” he returns. “And you’re right, it isn’t. Don’t go telling anyone. Just don’t want you to go around feeling sorry for yourself and ruin a good thing.”

He’d never thought he’d ever refer to the relationship between a mortal and a vampire a _good thing_ , and here he is. The Isran he’d been even a year ago wouldn’t even recognize the man he is now.

“Alright, Isran,” Eres relents. “I hear you. Let’s just go before the sky opens up on us.”

“Mhm,” he says, though he doesn’t know if he believes her. He may have to check on her, and he’s not looking forward to it. He didn’t sign up to be a counselor. But…

“One more thing, Eres.”

Eres sighs. “What is it?”

“What did it cost you?” He asks. “This—deal with the Gods thing you were talking about. What did it cost?”

Eres pulls the hood of her cloak over her head, and gives him just one word in answer:

“Everything.”


	2. The Migrating City

The rumbling of distant thunder continues through much of the morning, but the rain never breaks. Even Auria had spent much of the morning eying the sky suspiciously, as though she suspected it of trying to fool them. Isran keeps his hood pulled low over his eyes, just in case.

After several hours, Eres tires of wearing the hood in the afternoon heat and throws it to her shoulders with a huff.

“I wish this storm would make up its mind,” she grouses, more to herself than anyone else. The ends of her hair have still not dried from the dip in the lake, serving as an unwelcome reminder of the night before. It’s left her in a sour mood all morning.

Ahead of them, Auria slows. She and Serana have taken point. It seems rather like Auria and Isran have decided they each needed babysitting. Separately.

“That, _mikros_ ,” Auria says, a rare, elated grin on her lips, “is not a storm.”

As if in answer, a long, low rumble of thunder rolls through the air.

Eres raises a brow. “Sounds like one.”

“You will see,” Auria tuts, eying each of them in turn. “I imagine we’ll be upon the Marches soon enough.”

Eres eyes her warily. “And what’s in the Marches, exactly?”

She tilts her head back to look up, eying the dark clouds through the canopies above their heads. It hasn’t yet started to rain, but it looks like it might at any moment. It’s looked that way since dawn, and doesn’t appear to be clearing up any time soon.

“If that’s not a storm, then what is it?”

“The Migration, I imagine.” Serana answers.

She doesn’t look over her shoulder to address her directly, but Eres drops her eyes all the same. Tension rolls over her body like a wave, tightening her hands around the reins. Beneath her, the mare tosses her head, huffing as though she can sense Eres’ discomfort.

Auria lifts her hands from her own reins and claps them together, looking at Serana with excitement brimming in her bright eyes.

“Magnificent,” she cheers. Eres isn’t sure if she means Serana’s guess, or the Migration itself. “Tonight,” she says, looking back at Eres again, her expression almost wistful, “tonight, you will see it for yourself.”

“You mean to tell me that thunder is the city?” Isran asks her, frowning.

“Well,” Auria shrugs, and her horse slows without her having to command it. Eres eyes it with not a small amount of jealousy. Auria’s horse seems simply to know what she wants without being told. Her horse is as stubborn as a mule, and just as ornery.

“Some of it, at least.” Auria does peer up at the sky then, pursing her lips. “I imagine we do have a storm coming. It is that time of year, after all. But, yes - some of that is the city. It is not a quiet business, moving a city, you know.”

“How _does_ it move?” Eres asks. “If some of that’s the city - what’s making all the noise?”

“Why, the trees, of course.” Auria gives her a look like she ought to have known that. “And how else do you think it moves? They walk.”

“Walk,” Isran deadpans. “The trees… walk.”

“That is what I said, yes.”

“And… the walking sounds like thunder?”

“They are very large trees,” Auria informs them, sounding far too sensible about it all. “Imagine carrying a city on _your_ back. Would you not walk heavily?”

Isran’s entire face contorts into a pained grimace, but Eres doesn’t think he’s imagining the carrying. If he’s anything like her, he’s having a hard time trying to envision the sight of trees walking.

Eres has tried to imagine it since she was a child, curled up at bedtime listening to Niu’s stories of home on the few nights she could convince her to talk about it, before her father had sent her away. She had never been able to decide if the trees would waddle, or if their trunks might split and allow them to walk like humans did. Even now, decades later, Eres still isn’t quite sure what it would look like.

She looks up towards the trees of the forest they’re in. Even the trees here must be over a hundred feet tall, and she can’t imagine a city in them. Nor can she imagine them pulling up out of the ground and walking.

“Bigger than these,” Auria tells her, as if sensing where her thoughts had gone. “These will seem as children compared to what we shall see in the Marches.”

“Taller than these?” Eres asks. She looks up again, and feels a bit ill.

If the city is in the tree branches, as she imagines it might be, and the trees of Falinesti are even taller than these… Then that would mean that Falinesti itself must be hoisted hundreds of feet in the air. And moving. Her stomach rolls.

“How… exactly are we going to get in?”

“Don’t worry, _mikros_. The trees must rest, as we all must. When the sun sets, the city will root for the night. The city will wake for the repairs—”

“Repairs?”

“It is not an easy journey,” Auria replies. “Sometimes, bridges may break, or foundations will crack. When the city roots, they will work to repair what damage has been done during the day to prepare for the next. Then, once it has rooted near the capital, they will strengthen and rebuild for the return journey.”

Eres only feels more ill. “What happens if someone is on the bridges when they break?”

Auria scoffs. “Our people know better than that.”

Serana does look over her shoulder then, eying Eres with concern. Eres swallows. Something tightens in her chest and sinks low into her already ailing stomach. She’d been such an ass to her, and there Serana is - still worrying over her.

“…catch up with them,” her mother is saying, and Eres refocuses, pushing the thoughts away. Not now. Not now.

“What was that?”

Auria raises a brow. If she had noticed the exchange between Eres and Serana, she doesn’t mention it.

“We will catch up them tonight,” Auria repeats. “We will have to follow from a distance once we reach the Marches, but it will be safe to approach once the city has rooted for the night.”

“And then?” Eres probes. “How do we get up to the city from the ground?”

“Why, a lift, of course.”

“At least we don’t have to climb it,” Serana drawls, dry as a bone.

Auria chuckles. “There are some places in the city where you must climb, still. But we will use one of the service entrances to reach a Hollow where we can climb to the top.”

Eres’ shoulders sag. “I thought you said there’s a lift.”

“There is one. To the Hollow,” Auria replies. “And I meant stairs, _mikros_. We do have them.”

Eres flushes, embarrassed. Of course they’d have stairs. Why had she simply assumed they would be scaling the trees themselves? Is she no better than an ignorant Imperial or Nord, assuming her own people are little more than the Forsworn barbarians?

“The hell is a Hollow?” Isran asks.

“I’m sure you’ve seen a hollow in a tree before,” Auria replies easily. “It is exactly what it sounds like.”

“Ah,” Serana says. “For some reason, I thought the city would be in the branches.”

“It’s both,” Auria says. “There are areas of the city built into the trees themselves, just as there are areas stretched across the branches.”

“Please tell me you lived inside one,” Eres groans, just thinking of how terrible a time she’ll have trying to sleep if she has to spend the night worrying about toppling out of a multi-hundred foot tree. “The houses are inside them, aren’t they?”

“Some of them.” Auria shrugs. She must see the ill look on her face, for she clicks her tongue and scolds her, “Hush now. You won’t even remember how high we are once we’re there.”

“I doubt that,” Eres mutters. “As long as I can see the ground, I’ll remember.”

“Get in the habit of not looking down then,” Isran suggests, blunt as ever. The lack of sympathy on either of them is astounding. The one person who does seem to have any sympathy for her fear of heights is the one person who has the most reason not to.

“I’m sure it won’t be as bad once you get used to it,” Serana says.

Eres sighs. She can already feel that watery, half-numb feeling in her legs she gets when she’s too high up. Maybe she should have chosen Elswyr instead. It might have only been slightly hotter, and at least she wouldn’t have to worry for falling to her death in her sleep.

The Khajiit were a sensible people, as far as she knew. They built their houses on the ground.

It’s well past midday by the time they break through the tree line. Eres very nearly runs her horse right into the back of Serana’s.

“By the Blood,” Serana breathes, even as she holds out a hand to reach for Eres’ reins to steady her horse. “Would you look at that.”

Eres couldn’t have looked away if she tried.

A wide plain stretches out before them from east to west, far enough across that Eres can only see the rich, dark green of tree tops on the other side. Thunder rolls across the Marches not from the skies, but from the ground; a deep rumble that shakes the rocks and grass on the ground until all the world looks as though it vibrates beneath them. And in the center of all of it, meandering across the expanse of the great plains before them, a river of debris and dust and leaves—

And trees. Trees larger than any Eres has ever seen, canopies stretching higher into the sky than she had thought possible, shivering as they moved, swaying from one side to another, punctuated by the sound of thunder and the deep rumble of the earth beneath.

Eres’ mouth opens, and no sound comes out.

“How…” Isran starts, voice hoarse, and he clears his throat, turning his eyes away to look at Auria. “How in the hell do we catch up with _that_?”

From this distance, the trees look slow. Eres closes her mouth, eyes tracking from the cloud of dust at the very rear of the roving forest to somewhere in the middle, and she still cannot see how they might be moving across the earth. She knows it must be some kind of walking motion, something of a stepping, because the thunder comes when they sway. It’s not the sound of the skies, but the sound of the footsteps of giants.

At a guess, Eres would imagine they are still a couple of miles away from even the rear of it, and the trees get smaller with each passing minute. As meandering as that sway might look, they have to be moving _fast_ to cover such distance in so short a time.

“How does the city even… survive that?” Auria’s comment about breaking bridges suddenly makes far more sense.

“Very carefully,” Auria replies. From anyone else, it might have sounded sarcastic, but Auria states it as a simple fact. “We cannot catch up to it now. We must maintain our distance, so as not to be caught in its wake.” She waves vaguely in the direction of the river of the dirt and debris that follows behind it. “To approach it now would be suicide. We will ride parallel along the tree line, until it slows.”

Auria shifts on her saddle then, tutting. “Were that we could have caught the front…” She shakes her head. “It may be well after sunset before the rear comes to a stop. That is when we will close the distance and find our entrance.”

“’Find’ our entrance?” Serana questions, pursing her lips. “Why do you make it sound like we’re going to have to sneak in?”

“Well,” Auria looks away. “It is not often the city picks up stragglers on the way. But,” suddenly, the eagerness that had shone in her face since the morning fades, replaced by trepidation. “It so happens they will be looking for me, I imagine. They will let us in.”

Eres’ eyes narrow. Despite everything, she finds herself exchanging a glance with Serana out of pure habit. “They’re looking for you?” She asks. “I hope that doesn’t mean what I think it means.”

Auria paints a tight smile on her lips. “We shall see,” she says, and pushes her horse into a trot before any of them can question her.

“I got a bad feeling about this,” Isran mutters, shaking his head. “How the hell did I let you all convince me to come down here?”

“You’re soft,” Serana retorts. Isran snorts, kicking his own horse to follow Auria. Serana’s eyes fall upon Eres, and Eres has to fight the urge to avoid her gaze for shame of the night before. “I don’t suppose you’ve gotten anything out of Auria as to what to expect.”

Eres’ expression twists. “I was going to ask you the same thing,” she admits. It had been a vain hope, but Serana and Auria _had_ ridden most of the day together. “I knew she was hiding something, but—people are looking for her? Why do I get the feeling that it’s not for anything good?”

“Considering her history,” Serana drawls, “I’d be surprised if it was. Your mother could be a wanted criminal here, for all we know.”

“So much for a vacation.”

Serana eyes her, but says nothing. Eres urges her horse forward, if only to have an excuse to look away from her. She could have chosen something better to say than that. Now she’s just made them both uncomfortable for the reminder.

The silence lasts no more than a few minutes before Eres can stomach it no longer. There are questions digging at her brain, and asking them to herself is getting her nowhere.

“If she was wanted for some reason - why come back? Why risk it?”

“You’d have to ask her.” Serana shrugs. “Maybe we’re overthinking it.”

“Maybe.” Eres doubts it. She may be a bit paranoid, but she’s never had a bad feeling and been wrong about it. “Or maybe we’re just going to be walking into a mess she left behind.”

“Possible. We’ll deal with it when we get there.”

Eres can’t say she’s looking much forward to that, either. The trees are just so much taller than she’d expected… “I’m starting to think some dreams aren’t all chalked up to be.”

“Starting to?”

It takes Eres a moment to get the joke. When she does, it’s not quite funny enough to laugh at.

“I meant my dreams about Valenwood. When I was little…” When she was little, she’d never had to contend with the reality of just how very high up it would be. It had just been a nice thing to think about sometimes.

“I’m sure it won’t be that bad.”

Eres sighs. “Well, it can’t get much worse.”

She hadn’t quite meant to say that aloud, but she can’t take it back once it’s out. From the constant storms to feeling smothered by Auria, to not having alone time with Serana and then to having alone time and summarily ruining it herself _and_ getting into an argument with her… She’s not sure she could have found a worse start to a vacation if she’d tried.

Serana sighs, too. “Eres—”

“Not now,” Eres says, too quickly. When Serana frowns, Eres can’t quite hold her gaze. “I just—I would rather have this conversation on solid ground.”

Serana sends an unimpressed look just ahead of them. “We can’t be sure there’s going to _be_ solid ground, you know.” Eres’ stomach rolls dangerously. “That was a joke, Eres. You look like you’re going to puke.”

“I might,” Eres mutters.

Puking might be the least of her worries if it turns out the city up there doesn’t have any solid walkways or buildings. Gods forbid - what if everything is made of rickety rope bridges like the one at Darkfall? She might actually prefer a coma.

“Let’s just—get up there, and figure all this stuff out with Auria. Make sure we’re not going to be thrown into a dungeon or something when we get there. And then—”

“And then?”

“Then…” Eres wrings the reins in her hands, feeling tense and uncomfortable and all the things she shouldn’t feel around Serana, of all people. “We talk about it.”

“About last night?”

Eres nods.

“About Sovngarde?” Eres stiffens. Serana looks at her. “About your father?” When Eres’ brows snap together, Serana nods, as if to confirm her unspoken question. “You all keep forgetting my hearing is better than yours, and our camp wasn’t that big.”

“Oh,” Eres shifts in her saddle. Suddenly, she rather wishes she could run from this conversation. “You heard everything, then.”

“I imagine there’s more behind it.” Serana says simply. “It’s not just your father that’s bothering you. This… deal with the Gods thing… I know,” Serana says, when Eres opens her mouth to respond, “I know you can’t tell me everything. Tell me what you can, and we’ll move from there. I can’t help you if I don’t know what’s going on.”

Eres presses her lips together. There isn’t anything Serana could do to help her, even if she _could_ tell her everything. She doesn’t tell her that, though. That wouldn’t accomplish anything.

“I’m sorry,” is what she blurts out instead, and Serana raises her brows.

“For?”

Eres frowns. “Earlier. Last night.” It’s sort of blended together, at this point. Between her restlessness, the thing she’d seen at the cave, the argument, and the talk with Isran - she’d never gotten around to sleeping last night. She’d spent much of it staring up at the sky, hating herself a little more with each passing hour. “I don’t blame you.”

“Hmm…” Serana looks somewhere ahead of them, away from her, and Eres’ heart sinks a little lower.

“I don’t,” she repeats. “Serana. I really don’t—”

“We’ll talk about it,” Serana says, looking back at her. She doesn’t look particularly upset, but sometimes Serana is better at hiding her emotions than Eres has ever been. She can’t tell if Serana’s casual, almost indifferent expression is genuine, or put on for her sake. “But you’re right in that this isn’t a conversation we should be having on horseback. We’ll talk once we get there.”

Now Eres has two reasons to dread their arrival - both just how very high up the city would be, and knowing what conversation will be waiting for her when they finally have a moment to themselves.

“Let’s catch up with your mother. They’re getting too far ahead of us.” Auria and Isran have pulled several hundred meters ahead of them.

With a sigh, Eres urges her horse into a gallop, and they fall into silence.

* * *

The slowing of the migration happens so gradually that by the time that darkness falls over the valley, it takes Eres several minutes to even notice that the trees she passes have begun to still. Eres sways in her saddle at a wave of unexpected dizziness. The sight of the trees at rest look somehow odd to her now, after chasing their movement for nearly a full day.

They are not quite still, all things told. Eres peers at the trees closest to her as they pass, with trunks as wide as entire houses in Skyrim - and the way the aged bark seems almost to shiver and breathe. The rumble is not quite so loud as it had been much of the day, but rather more of a low growl. She’s not sure what the noise is until she sees the ground shiver beneath a passing tree as a root snakes and digs its way underneath through hard-packed earth beneath the trampled trail of ground around it.

Had _that_ been the source of the thunder-like noises they had heard? Was it the sounds of the trees’ roots spearing into the ground below and ripping it up as they went? The rear is too far back to check now, but Eres wonders if the path of the migrating city behind them might look not so much unlike tilled earth from the city’s crossing.

“Oh,” Serana says suddenly, eyes turned up high beside her. Her brows raised and her mouth pursed, she is the very picture of pleasant surprise.

Eres tilts her head back, too, and blinks.

She had not realized just how very dark the canopies were until the lights began to illuminate them. One by one, section by section, little pockets of lantern light erupt amongst the canopies, throwing off bursts of little orange-red glows against the green. There are some trees with lights in the their trunks, spiraling downward, and others with black voids that turn to a warm, golden glow, as if someone had turned on the sun in the blackest night.

Auria releases a sigh that sounds somewhere between dreamy and wistful.

“She is as beautiful as I remember,” she murmurs, a smile on her lips and soft warmth in her eyes. “Even from down here.”

Eres is only just entranced enough by the lights to not think about how high up they are.

“Yes,” Isran grumbles, shifting uncomfortably in his saddle, “the lights are very pretty. Now where’s this damn lift so we can get up there and find an inn with a couple of nice beds?” A pause. “And a bath or two,” he adds, wrinkling his nose.

The thought of an actual bath is almost enough for Eres to forget everything else on her mind. It had been weeks since Arenthia, and bathing in streams and rivers could only get you so far.

“Wait—” Serana looks down again, brows furrowing. “How do they even get water up there?”

Eres frowns, too, looking to Auria herself.

“The forest provides all we need,” Auria says, though it’s not much of an explanation. “We will need to find a service entrance…” She trails off, eyes dropping from the canopies to scan nearer to the ground. “There should be one near the edge—ah, here.” She points at one of the trees with the spiraling lights down its trunk. “Come, we must leave the horses here, or they will be trampled in the morning when we resume our course.”

Eres climbs off her own, her body one large ache. “You said there’s a lift - I don’t see one.”

“We must call it down, of course,” Auria says, and marches ahead of them towards the tree with the spiraling lights, pulling the hood of her cloak over her head.

Eres looks to Serana and Isran to find matching frowns on their faces.

“We’re definitely sneaking in,” Serana says, looking after her mother as she goes. “Something tells me this isn’t the way you’d typically enter the city.”

“What gave you that idea?” Isran mutters, trudging after her. “The shit you all get me into…”

With a sigh, Eres follows behind. “If we end up in jail, I’m going to strangle her myself.”

Ahead of them, Auria arrives at the base of the gargantuan tree, the roots alone dwarfing her in size. She doesn’t even pause as she approaches it, but starts to clamber up one of the roots like a child, palming at the base of the tree. Auria trails her fingers across the grooves of the bark as though she expects it to give way beneath her hands, poking and prodding along the seams with a furrowed brow and pinched expression.

“What the hell is she doing?” Isran asks, coming to stand beside Eres at the very base. Like the sensible people they are, each of them have decided not to follow in Auria’s footsteps. Instead they gather as spectators, staring up at the woman as she goes.

“I’ve decided not to ask,” Eres replies, hands on her hips. The air is even more humid and muggy within the copse of the migrating city’s trees, and she refuses to exert any more energy than she absolutely has to in this heat. “I’m surprised no one’s come to investigate.”

“I imagine they don’t see the point,” Serana offers, peering far, far above their heads to the canopies. “Look how far you’d have to climb to reach the city. I can’t even see where it might be through all the leaves.”

“And the only people who might know about any service lift like this would be someone who already lives there,” Isran adds, though he eyes Auria dubiously. He doesn’t look too convinced that such a thing exists, and Eres can’t even blame him. Her mother looks like an absolute nutter, palming the tree like she expects it might manifest a door out of thin air.

“A _ha_!” Auria cries, and by the Divines, if Eres had not seen it with her own eyes, she would not have believed it.

Auria presses her hand against a nondescript panel of bark that looks no different from any of the other bark surrounding it, and the bark shudders, ripples, and peels away as though lifting a page from a book to reveal a darkened interior carved into the very base of the trunk near the root that Auria had clambered upon. A light flickers to life within it, bathing the small hollowed-out space with warm, golden light.

If Eres had expected anything fanciful, however, she is sorely disappointed. It looks like no more than a cubby carved into the tree, with walls and a floor and ceiling cut into the wood. Each side of the small space is as nondescript as the last, marked only by the patterns of the tree’s inner rings.

Auria looks at them expectantly. “Well?” She tosses a hand towards the hole. “Get in.”

Serana makes a face. “That looks awfully small for four people.”

“Beggars cannot be choosers,” Auria huffs, climbing into it herself. With Auria inside it, it looks even smaller - the ceiling is just a few scant inches above her head. “Come now.” She eyes Isran and Serana, tutting. “The two of you will have to duck down.”

“Joy,” Serana mutters. She glances to Eres. “After you.”

Eres, despite her misgivings, climbs inside beside her mother, and immediately regrets it. “By gods, it’s _hot_.”

“We are inside a tree,” Auria retorts. “What did you expect?”

“Please tell me it’s not this hot in the city.” She can already feel herself starting to sweat. “And how long is this ride going to be?”

“Do you ever stop complaining?”

Serana snorts as she climbs inside, chuckling.

“No,” Eres and Serana say, in near perfect unison.

Serana, seemingly finding herself a comedian, leans against the wall in front of Eres, bends down, and braces her hands on her knees as if to squat. Eres contemplates the merits of kicking her, but the heat is enough to dissuade her. She settles for giving the woman her most unamused look, which only serves to make Serana send a quick smirk in her direction. 

Isran grunts, climbing in himself, ducking his head and shoulders to fit. His expression morphs into an uncomfortable grimace. 

Auria rolls her eyes at the lot of them. Eres does not see what she does, or where the invisible panel might have been this time, but the bark-door shudders closed in front of them, closing them inside with barely enough space to stand.

Beside her, Serana closes her eyes, her amusement vanishing in an instant. Eres reaches for her without thought, pressing a hand to the small of her back. As uncomfortable as the experience is for the rest of them, she can only imagine what it must be like for Serana - a distressing reminder of her millenia-long entombment in Dimhollow.

“My tomb was more comfortable than this,” Serana says dryly, “and that’s saying something. At least I had enough space to stand.”

Auria’s expression twists. “Oh, Serana,” she murmurs, sudden sympathy in her gaze. “I had forgotten.”

“It’s fine,” Serana sighs. Even so, she shifts uneasily. “As long as we’re not going to be in here for a few thousand years, I think I’ll be alright.”

“If we end up stuck in here for even a day, you have my permission to kill and eat me first,” Isran mutters.

“Hush.” Auria points upward. “We will arrive at the service hollow shortly.”

“It’s moving?” Eres looks down, but with how nondescript everything about this tiny little room is, it’s impossible to see any movement. She can’t even feel it.

“Of course. Did you think I wished to be in here any longer than necessary?” Auria shakes her head. “Once we arrive, allow me to do the talking.”

“How did I know that was coming…” Serana shakes her head. “What are you getting us into, Auria?”

“Are you some kind of criminal?” Eres asks, because she’s tired of beating around the bush. Auria has kept them all in the dark long enough.

“Not in so many words,” her mother says, carefully, and Eres slams the back of her head against the wall. “Eresael.”

“For _fuck_ _’s_ sake, Auria!”

“Language.”

“What did you _do_?”

“It is more about what I did not do,” Auria corrects. She pauses then, frowns, and amends: “Well, I suppose it is both, now.”

“ _Auria_ —”

The wall behind Eres opens suddenly with a blast of fresh, wood-scented air, and a hushed silence that does not quite sound natural.

A great expanse of a room spills out before them in a wide circle, with exits at either side that appear to lead to stairwells cut into the interior of the tree. The room itself is nothing to write home about - mostly empty, with the exception of several racks of specialized tools that Eres could not have guessed the use of, several tables with parchments stretched across them—

And three _very_ confused Bosmeri workers, staring back at them.

Eres presses a hand to her face and groans aloud.

Auria, however, does not miss a beat.

“ _Cha_ _írete_ ,” Auria says, with a cheery wave at the three mute, baffled workers. She steps out of the lift with not even a hint of uncertainty, and gestures for the rest of them to follow. “Good to see you.”

The three Bosmeri exchange glances. Then turn to eye them suspiciously. “You know we’re not supposed to let people in there,” one of them says, frowning.

“She’s not one of ours,” says the second, his suspicious stare hardening into a glare. “Who are you?”

“Wait—” the third steps forward, waving a finger in Auria’s direction. “I know you. You look familiar.”

Eres stills. Auria’s smile doesn’t fall.

“You from the _Verdes_?” The third one asks. “Remember, Talik. They said we’d be getting some loan workers over from the front. The bridge must be out.”

Talik, the second Bosmeri man, swears under his breath. “How many is that now, seven?!”

The first sighs, “Eleven, with the West Temple bridge today.”

Talik swears again, spinning back to one of the tables. “Go on, then!” He throws up a hand in their direction. “Head up the stairs and to the left. Halla’s been waiting for you lot all day. And I’d make it quick - she’s not a patient woman.”

“Of course,” Auria answers, and hurries toward the stairwell to the west of the room, beckoning them after her.

“Since when did the _Verdes_ let outsiders on with the bridgeworkers?” Eres hears one of the men below ask as they begin to climb.

The gruff man, Talik, scoffs. “Don’t know, don’t care. This year’s been a nightmare. We need all the help we can get.”

A long, forlorn sigh. “We’ll be lucky to catch a break before winter…”

Ahead of them, Auria releases a breath, turning to shoot them all a relieved smile. “That went well,” she says, and Eres scowls at her.

“’Well,’” she repeats, deadpan. “What happens if a guard spots us? We’re not supposed to be here, are we?”

“Well, not officially…” Auria climbs the stairs two at a time. “But it is not against the law to use the service stairs.”

“And is it against the law to sneak into the service entrance?” Isran asks.

“I don’t believe anyone has tried before now,” Auria answers.

“That was a yes or no question.” Serana sighs. “I told you we should have ditched them, Eres.”

“I’m starting to think you were right.”

“Hey now,” Isran mutters, “Don’t drag me into her shit. I’m innocent.”

“We are _all_ innocent,” Auria huffs, turning to scowl at them as she reaches the landing at the top of the stairs. “We merely used a back entrance. We have done nothing wrong.”

“I would beg to differ, _Apistos_.”

Auria goes deathly still. Eres, frowning, peers past her - and swears. “ _Guard_ ,” she whispers, to Serana and Isran beside her. To Auria, she asks, “What’s _Apistos_?”

“Bringing outsiders into the Hollow, _Apistos_?”

Eres does not hear the clank of metal, for the Bosmeri guard does not wear plate as the guards in Skyrim or Cyrodiil might wear. Instead, the man wears a loose, lightweight tunic that reaches only to his knees, and no more than a leather vest, bracers, and the wraps on his feet for armor. His build is lithe rather than strong, but in one hand, he leans a spear taller than himself against one shoulder. It reminds her of the Imperial _kontarion_ , with its length and lighter weight. For some reason, the sight of a Bosmeri man with a spear instead of a bow surprises her.

“Are you starting a collection? Want to see how long your list of charges can get?”

“Charges,” Serana mutters, sending a dark look in Auria’s direction. “You _are_ a criminal.”

“Aye,” says the Bosmeri man. He is young, younger than Eres had expected he would be for someone who seems so familiar with her mother. He could not have been much older than herself, with rich, chestnut skin and a shock of unruly dark hair atop his head. His eyes are narrow and dark, cutting a cold look across the lot of them. “She is.”

“I am not,” Auria says stiffly. She angles her body in front of Eres as though she expects the man will toss his spear in their direction. “I did not stand trial. I was never convicted of any crime.”

“Yet, _Apistos_ ,” the man says, with a pointed look. “You are not convicted _yet_.”

The man rises from the table he had leaned against, approaching them far too casually for a lone guard. If they had been actual enemies, Eres thinks, they could have killed him and been done with it without breaking a sweat. At that thought, Eres reaches to brush a hand against Serana’s side, the type of wordless communication they could only do with each other. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the barest of nods - Serana understands.

If this goes too far south, Serana will kill him. But no sooner.

Eres had expected this man - boy? He truly did not look very old at all - would choose to goad her mother further, but instead, his dark eyes scan the three of them behind her.

His eyes alight upon Eres, and do not move. He scans her face searchingly, mouth pressed into a thin line, looking between herself and Auria.

After a long moment, he says, “You must be the long-lost daughter, then.”

Eres blinks. She had not known she would have a reputation.

A door in the hall behind the man opens before she has the chance to ask about it.

Eres sees the antlers first - stretching high above a human head, sprouting from a crown made of what appears to be bone. 

Eres follows the antler’s down to the skull of an animal, sculpted to fit the features of a humanoid face and fitted so that only the mouth and nostrils of the wearer were visible. From this distance, the shadow of the mask makes it too difficult to see the mask-wearer’s eyes, but their skin is as rich a brown as the guard’s, save for two streaks of stark white paint the curl at either side of her chin and down her neck into the collar of her shirt.

She, like the guard, wears light cloth tied simply as a short tunic, though hers is as sun-bleached white as her animal-skull crown. A sash of royal blue crosses from one shoulder to her opposite waist, tucked into the waistband of her tunic and dangling to one knee.

If her manner of dress, decoration, and the collection of finely crafted jewelry on her wrists and dangling from her neck were anything to go by - Eres would say this woman must have been someone high in status within Falinesti.

Much higher than the guard, at least.

“Dalen.” The guard straightens, his mouth pressing into a thin line. “The Council is in session. I have warned you before.”

Dalen swallows. “ _Mi Kyria_ ,” he says, ducking his head quickly in deference. He murmurs something in Bosmeri too quickly for Eres to translate it in her head. Whatever it is, she doubts it’s anything good.

The woman behind him tilts her head, regarding them with a cool, calculating gaze. Her eyes examine each of them in turn, lingering first on Eres and Auria, passing over Isran with disinterest, and stopping upon Serana. Her lips press together with marked displeasure.

But she says, “Let them through,” and Eres blinks.

“ _What?_ ” Dalen snaps his head to look at her, mouth agape.

“Let them through,” the woman replies evenly. “I will deal with them.”

“But—” The woman raises her chin, and Dalen quiets. The look he gives them all as he steps aside would have been enough to melt steel.

Auria sends the guard a self-satisfied smile as she struts past him. “Tilly—” The woman frowns. “Tiladriel,” Auria corrects, her smile waning. “ _Cha_ _írete_ _._ ”

“Come, Auria.” The woman does not answer the polite greeting. Instead, she turns, marching away from them down the long corridor that snakes ever upward. “The walls have ears.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Notes on Bosmeri as a language: 
> 
> 1\. Base/Inspiration: Bosmeri, as I described in an earlier chapter wayyy back when Auria was first introduced, is based primarily off of Greek, with the occasional loan word from Latin, French, or other romance languages. Most of the words are kept either exact or very close to what I was able to find a translation for, though some may have alternate spellings to account for phonetics as best as my non-speaking self could. If I have any Greek-speaking readers I apologize in advance for butchering your language as I'm sure the dictionaries I found weren't perfect lol.  
> 2\. Why Greek?: I've discussed this before previously, but Bosmeri aesthetically (in terms of clothing anyways) are inspired by Ancient Roman/Greek, so it seemed fitting. I also really wanted Auria to have a "pet name" for Eres, and Mikros was the first one that came to mind since I'd been playing ACO recently at the time, and I just decided it would be best to keep the theme mostly the same without mixing up too many different types of languages. It's more believable as a language with a consistent "sound". There's probably a linguistic term for this but I have one brain cell and don't know what it is. I actually briefly considered just using Al Bhed for the language base, but then I'd have had to go through cyphering any dialogue and it would have been a pain in the ass. Also everyone would know I'm a nerd.  
> 3\. Eres' Fluency: This is probably something people aren't sure of as I don't think I've gone too far into it. She's not fluent. She can follow simple phrases here and there, but only when spoken slowly. Auria has taught her a bit, but she's nowhere near fluent. This is why some Bosmeri in previous acts has been translated (such as Eres knowing the word for Calm, Mother, and a curse word), while other Bosmeri is left as-is (because Eres doesn't understand it).  
> 4\. What language do the Bosmeri speak in Valenwood?: Tamrielic is most common in Valenwood (or Alessian in the fic). Most of the dialogue will still be in Common. However, most in the more traditional cities like Falinesti are bilingual and will often use Bosmeri in front of outsiders, as it's not commonly spoken outside of Valenwood. 
> 
> Translations:  
> 1\. Chaírete - Hello, how are you, good to see you, etc. Formal. A customary, polite greeting in Bosmeri, often used with people of equal or higher rank, or strangers in polite settings.  
> 2\. Apistos - Direct translation: faithless. It has a deeper meaning that we'll find out soon enough.  
> 3\. Mi Kyria - "My Lady", essentially. Used for women of higher rank than the speaker, especially by men.


	3. With Friends Like These

They do not go far. The woman Tiladriel leads them to a door and holds it open. “Inside,” she commands.

Auria enters the room without hesitation. The rest of them are considerably more cautious, but Eres follows her mother, and Serana follows Eres, and so they all trail into the room one after the other.

The room appears to be little more than a small office, with a desk and several chairs, and floor-to-ceiling bookshelves against the far wall, only half-filled. The rest of the room is almost spartan in its bareness, lacking personality or any indication as to who may have owned this office.

Tiladriel closes the door behind them all, and stands in front of it, hands clasped in front of her waist. Isran stands with his arms crossed over his chest, shifting his weight from foot to foot with plain discomfort. It has been a long journey, and even horseback could be hard on the body after a time. Auria moves to the desk, brushing a finger against its polished surface, humming under her breath.

Eres places herself somewhere between both Isran and Auria, distrust plain in her expression. Serana remains just by her side, ever watchful - both of this woman Tiladriel, and Eres herself, who seems to grow more tense by the minute. 

“This is yours now, Tilly?” Auria asks, glancing toward the woman by the door. “You’ve come a long way in so short a time.”

Though her words sound complimentary, for some reason, they make Tiladriel frown. “I will not play this game with you, Auria.”

Auria blinks, brows raising. Tiladriel’s hostility seems to have surprised her.

Eres looks at her mother and frowns. “Just how many enemies do you have?”

At that, Tiladriel scoffs. “It would be faster to count her friends.” She leans against the door, crossing her arms over her chest. “What few of them remain.”

Auria’s smile does not reach her eyes. “Perhaps if my friends had not cowed to the Council, I would not have so many enemies.”

“You expect people to go against the will of the Sages?” Tiladriel asks, with marked disbelief. “You are many things, Auria, but I have never known you to be a fool.”

“Is it foolish to believe one’s friends would defend them against false accusations?”

“False?” Tiladriel throws up one of her hands, gesturing in Eres’ direction. “Is this not the very daughter you threw to the Imperials?”

Auria’s eyes flash with anger. “Tell me, Tiladriel - who was it that spent years sending extraction teams to the capital with explicit orders to _not_ recover the ‘halfling girl’? Once,” Auria turns to Eres, eyes bright with fervor, “I had believed in the Sages. In the Council. I had believed in Falinesti. My home. Then they abandoned you. Four years it took to persuade them. Four years of fighting at every turn to have my daughter counted as legitimate - do you remember?” She turns back to Tiladriel.

“It was _they_ who failed me. Who failed my daughter. And yet I return, broken, and the Council charges me with the very crimes that they themselves engineered!”

Eres leans back on her heels, eyebrows rising. Serana leans in to whisper into her ear. “Are you sure you don’t get your temper from your mother, too?”

Serana had not had the misfortune of meeting Eres’ father, but Auria’s temper seemed to be no less fiery than Eres’ own, if a bit more rare. Eres glances at her, with a tiny little shrug of her shoulders. Perhaps the reason Eres’ temper could be so volatile was that she had both her father _and_ her mother’s quick-boiling blood in her.

“Tell me,” Auria spins to face them, an almost beseeching look upon her face. “Tell me how a woman can be charged with two conflicting crimes at the same time. How can I be charged with abandonment _and_ failure to terminate? Which is it?” She turns back to Tiladriel. “Which is it, Tilly? Am I to kill my daughter, or to bring her? Had the ambush not happened, would I then have been charged for failure to terminate? Perhaps add in a bit of human trafficking, for a bit of spice?”

Serana’s brow furrows. _Failure to terminate_? This Council had expected Auria to kill her own child? Where was the logic in that? As far as she had heard, she’d believed the Bosmeri to be a mostly peaceful people. The thought of them ordering an execution of a child does not match up with her own preconceptions. Could there be such a dark side to even the Bosmeri?

“Auria—”

“Admit it.” Auria hisses. “The _Council_ fucked up with Romulus. They knew it. And when I had Eresael they saw a way out. They wanted someone to blame their failures on, and I was just unlucky enough to fit the bill.”

“It is the _law_ , Auria. No matter how slighted you may feel—”

“The law is _wrong!_ The law put me in the Depths for eighteen years, Tilly! Without a trial! Without any chance to defend myself! Since when have we allowed our people to be treated this way? Since when has our Council had free reign to toss someone in a dungeon indefinitely without a conviction?”

“Wait.” Isran stands, holding his hands up. “Back up.” He looks to Tiladriel. “You threw her in prison for damn near _twenty years_ without a trial?”

“ _Thank_ you!” Auria tosses up her hands, scoffing. “Even _Skyrim_ would find it barbaric. _Skyrim_ ,” she says, as if they are the absolute lowest authority on civilized behavior. Serana can’t say she disagrees, but she’s not sure even the Stormcloaks would throw someone in a dungeon for that long without at least putting on the pretense of a trial, even if it was falsified, just to satisfy the populace.

Tiladriel closes her eyes and takes a long breath. “We were at war—”

“Come off it. We have been at war for centuries,” Auria sneers. “We are _always_ at war. There is no excuse for what was done to me, and you know it. No excuse for my daughter spending twenty years of her life believing I had abandoned her at will.”

“This doesn’t add up,” Eres says, brow furrowing. “Mirabelle said she’d been in contact with you since you left. If you were in prison - then why didn’t you just tell her? She could have helped you.”

“This is Falinesti, Eresael, not the Empire. Mirabelle could not have helped. Falinesti has powerful protections against foreign magic. She would simply made herself an enemy of the state as well as I, had she even survived the attempt to breach it. I had to find my own way out.”

“Which,” Tiladriel says, “may I remind you, is _also_ a crime. And whoever aided in your escape will have to be charged as well. Just how many people do you aim to bring down with you, Auria?”

“That depends,” Auria says, almost flippantly, turning back to her. “How many people are on the Council, again? Remind me.”

Serana whistles lowly under her breath so that only Eres can hear her. Auria is playing a _dangerous_ game, threatening to bring down the government itself for the sake of personal vengeance. She can’t say she doesn’t see the merit in it - had it been her in Auria’s position, she could not say she would not want the same. If she had been made scapegoat for such a thing, she would want justice just as much as Auria seemed to.

But telling that to a member of that very same governmental body is likely not the smartest thing Auria could have done, as bold as it may have been. Serana can respect the boldness of it. She cannot say she respects the intelligence of it.

Beside her, Eres presses her hands to her temples, letting out a long, quiet sigh. The sound of Eres’ heartbeat in her ears strengthens, bounding powerfully at her neck.

Argument or no, tension or no - there is no one more in tune with Eres’ emotions than Serana herself. She senses the shift immediately, the cascade of passive tension coiling into active tension, like the tightening of an over-taut rope until it begins to strain at the seams.

Eres has, in all aspects, not had a good time the past couple of days. Between the argument the night before, the tension of the morning, and now the discovery of her mother’s apparent criminal background and impending trial, of all things - it’s only a matter of time before that temper of hers flares up again.

Serana doesn’t care that they haven’t talked about it yet. She doesn’t care that Eres has been especially tense around her since this morning - she had expected as much, even without Auria’s foresight. She reaches out all the same, drawing Eres away from the center of the room and into the corner, away from the conversation.

“I know,” she murmurs to Eres, and with the distraction of the others keeping their attention away from them, she allows herself the moment of pressing her lips to the top of Eres’ head. “Don’t go snapping at her,” she warns quietly. “As entertaining as it might be, it probably wouldn’t be the best idea to piss off an official.”

The sound Eres makes is somewhere between a choked laugh and a scoff. When she looks up at Serana, her eyes burn far hotter than they had even the night before. “Serana,” she says, in a heated whisper, “I’m—”

“I know,” Serana says again, because she does. While both of them had expected that Auria had been hiding something, the thought that she might have been a criminal had been more of a dark joke rather than an actual suspicion. That it had not only been true, but also that they were now caught in the middle of it from Auria’s deception… She knows how Eres feels about trust.

She knows even better how Eres feels about being lied to, about having things hidden from her. About being blindsided with information she should have had far long ago.

If Auria had told them what they were getting into, perhaps Eres would not be so upset. If the two of them had not fought just the night before, perhaps Eres would be better equipped to deal with the reality of the situation they’re in now. Perhaps, if things were different, Eres would be more level headed in this moment, better able to control her warring emotions to deal with the matter at hand politically rather than emotionally.

The situation had created a perfect storm, and that storm is just on the cusp of breaking.

“Breathe, Eres.” Serana presses her hands against either side of Eres’ face, and tries to ignore the bounding pulse against the tips of her fingers near Eres’ neck. That high a blood pressure could not be healthy for her.

“You speak of treason?” Serana hears Tiladriel say, just over her shoulder.

“I speak of _justice._ ” Auria sighs, her shoulders falling. “By all the Gods, Tilly - we were friends, once. Has that crown of yours sapped all the empathy remaining in you? Have they twisted you so far from who you were? The Tilly I knew would have defended me. Or at the very least, pretended to understand where I was coming from.”

“That was a long time ago,” Tiladriel says. “I am just one person, Auria. I cannot bend the Council any more than I could bend the Graht-Oak. Dalen would have been well within his rights to return you to the Depths as soon as he saw you. You and your… companions,” she waves vaguely in their direction. “That I delayed him at all is a mark on me. The Council will find out, and they will want to know why. What exactly did you expect me to do?”

“Get me a trial.” Auria says simply. “That’s all.”

“A trial.” Tiladriel shakes her head. “At this point, Auria… Were I to speak as your friend, and not as Shaman: Leave. Leave while you still can. A trial will do nothing but cement your fate. You are already guilty in their eyes. Your escape merely proves your guilt to them, whether you returned to face trial or not. You have escaped once. You can do so again. You may not return to Falinesti, but—”

“No.” Auria says. “I want a trial.” A pause. A sharp, determined gleam in her eyes. “A public one.”

Tiladriel pauses. Regards her critically. “Public,” she says.

“Public,” she confirms. “They wish to make an example of me? To blame me for the failure to retrieve Romulus and end this war for good? So be it. Let them make their case, and I shall make mine—”

“She’s going to get us all killed, at this rate,” Serana mutters, scowling at Auria’s back.

Tiladriel turns suddenly to face them. “If there is anyone who will get us killed, it will be her,” she says, her eyes shifting to Eres.

Auria’s brows snap together. “Tiladriel, tell me you have not fallen for the—”

“Auria,” Tiladriel cuts in sharply, “look at her. Have you taught her nothing?”

Serana watches as Auria frowns, as her expression turns to something like consideration. For a moment, Auria shifts, as if she means to approach them—but then she halts where she stands, pressing her lips together with conflict in her eyes.

“Serana,” Auria says quickly, urgently. “A moment, if you please. Come here for a moment.” She beckons, with meaning in her eyes.

Serana ignores the venomous look Tiladriel shoots her. Eres lets out a long sigh, turning away from the lot of them as she begins to pace with agitation.

Satisfied that Eres is at least stable for the moment, Serana goes to stand before Auria and Tiladriel, crossing her arms over her chest. “What is it?”

She’s not blind. It’s plain as day that Tiladriel has seen through the usual light glamor she places to blend in. She’s not bothered to drop it, just in case, but she knows that Tiladriel must know, if the manner in which the woman seemed to immediately distrust her was anything to go by.

“You know Eres best,” Auria says, in a hushed voice. “You must get her to calm down.”

“Did you think I was just twiddling my thumbs over there?” Serana asks, cross. “I was already working on it, Auria.”

“That’s not—” Auria closes her eyes, reaching up to pinch at the bridge of her nose. It’s almost a mirror of something Serana has seen Eres do one too many times. “The Graht-Oaks within Falinesti are especially sensitive to mana fluctuations. Eres does not have control over hers, and her emotions affect their volatility. Her anger is bleeding into it. I fear she will not listen to me just now, and I cannot teach her the means so quickly when she is already irate. But you may calm her well enough that her emotions will not negatively affect the Oak.”

Serana looks between both Auria and Tiladriel, doubtful. “Eres is one girl. This is a giant tree. How much can she really be affecting it just because she’s irritated?”

Tiladriel scoffs, shaking her head. “It takes only one man to burn down a village.”

Auria nods in agreement. “You must remember the Oak is a living thing, not a building. It can be swayed, and our children are trained to know how not to do this before they are old enough that it would matter. Eres is more than just _one girl_ , all the same, and you are aware of that as well as I.”

Serana tosses her hands up, sighing. “I’ll do what I can. But if it’s that much of a problem, we need to get out of here. _This_ shit,” Serana gestures, vaguely in Auria’s direction, “is only serving to piss her off more. You should have warned her what she was walking into, Auria. After all she’s been through, you didn’t think she deserved a heads-up?”

“We can discuss this later, Serana.”

“We will,” Serana promises. “Find us somewhere else to be and make yourself scarce until Eres calms down.” Serana sighs, running a hand through her hair. “At least she’s pissed at you now instead of me.”

“She was never—”

“Now, if you please,” Tiladriel interrupts. “The longer she is like this, the worse it will be.”

With a roll of her eyes, Serana turns back to Eres again, leaving Tiladriel and Auria behind her. She’d probably have had Eres a lot calmer by now if they hadn’t decided she needed to be coached on it.

“Tilly,” Auria says, and the woman is already shaking her head before she answers the question. “Can you escort us to my home?”

“Absolutely not.” Tiladriel says. “Even if I were willing to abet a criminal - how do you mean to hide, returning to your old haunts?”

“They would not think me bold enough to return there,” Auria says, shrugging. “Beyond that, I imagine no one has ventured near it since I left. Given my status.”

Tiladriel shifts on her feet. “It has been condemned,” she says, almost reluctantly. “But I cannot take you there.”

“Then bring Niu to me.” Serana’s attention shifts, back to Auria.

She knows that name.

She knows that name, because Eres has mentioned it before. Hadn’t that been the name of one of her tutors? When she looks at Eres, she sees her frozen where she stands, an unreadable look on her face, eyes fixed upon Auria and Tiladriel across the room.

“Niu is in the Council chamber.”

“Then go and get her,” Auria says, shrugging. “She will help me. Help _us_.” 

“Niu,” Serana whispers to Eres. “Haven’t you mentioned her before?”

A knock sounds at the door. “ _Kyria_?” Comes a voice, female and young. Tiladriel spins, slamming the door closed with a hand just as it begins to open.

Tiladriel opens the door the tiniest crack and lowers her voice to a whisper, speaking in hurried Bosmeri that Serana could not hope to understand. When she finishes, Tiladriel turns back to Auria, a deep frown etched on her face.

“Auria—” Tiladriel says, and Auria nods.

“After this,” Auria says, “you shall owe me no longer.”

Tiladriel’s lip curls. “I did not owe you to begin with.”

At this, Auria shrugs. “If that is what you would like to believe. But I imagine you would not have done this if you didn’t believe you owed me your aid one last time.”

Beside her, Eres shakes her head, pressing her hands to her temples. “I can’t deal with this right now…”

Serana can relate. From the time they had caught wind of the migration on the plains - or the Marches, as Auria had called it, it had seemed like a nonstop flurry of one dramatic twist after another. First, the realization that they were sneaking into the city. Then, that Auria was a criminal, and apparently a rather well known one at that. The discovery that Auria had, at some point, been blamed for the failure to deliver Romulus back to the people in Valenwood who wished him to pay for his crimes against the forest, and now - now this Niu person, reappearing, at this time?

They’ve not been in Falinesti more than an hour at best, and it has been a whirlwind of epic proportions.

“When we get out of here, we’ll find somewhere for you to rest,” Serana tells her. “This is a lot to take in at once.”

Eres scoffs, turning away from her, and starts to pace all over again.

Mere minutes later, there is yet another knock at the door. This time, when Tiladriel answers it, she calls out in Alessian:

“Who is it?”

“ _Kyria_ ,” another woman’s voice this time, more mature and fuller than the last. “I was told you needed to see me?” Confusion. Perhaps a bit of wariness. Uncertainty.

Tiladriel opens the door a crack and peers out of it. “Are you alone?”

“Yes…?” The voice answers. “Did you need me to bring someone?”

“Did anyone follow you?”

A pause. “ _Kyria_ , what is this about? Has something happened?”

“Yes or no.”

“Of course not. The Council is still in session. _Kyria_ Thea is looking for you. She’s quite cross that you left so suddenly.”

“I will deal with her.” Tiladriel opens the door, but only just enough for the person on the other side to shuffle into the room sideways, blocking the interior of the room from view from the outside. “Come in, and be quiet about it.”

The woman who enters the room, somewhat hesitantly, is of a similar height to Tiladriel - several inches shorter than Eres, and near a full foot shorter than Serana herself. As with many Bosmeri women Serana has seen, her figure is lean and slender, made more apparent by the drape of the light cloth of the off-white tunic that, at this point, Serana is starting to believe may be some kind of uniform or expectation for this so-called council.

Unlike Tiladriel, the woman does not have the royal blue sash crossing over her chest, but one that is mostly the same color as her tunic, save for the exception of thin, royal blue trim at the edges. Perhaps, Serana thinks, the sash is some kind of signifier of rank within this Council. If it was, she could assume that this woman - Niu, if that was who it was - was of lower rank than Tiladriel herself. She also wears the odd animal-skull like mask over the top portion of her face, except hers does not have the same magnificence of Tiladriel’s. No antlers sprout from it, and even her jewelry is understated in comparison.

“By the Depths, Tiladriel, what in—” the woman halts where she stands at the sight of them all gathered in the room before her.

“I trust in your discretion, Niu,” says Tiladriel, sounding very much like she does not. “Quiet.”

“Auria,” Niu greets, surprisingly even-toned and polite, given the situation, especially in comparison to the woman beside her.

Niu, Serana decides, is entirely forgettable. She is not an especially memorable woman, though she is pretty enough - with gold-brown skin and waves of dark hair spilling about her shoulders, she is passably pretty, Serana supposes. But with the mask, and no discerning features to go off of, Serana is not sure she would have been able to recognize her in a crowd. Even so, Eres stills where she stands, hovering uncertainly.

“Niu,” Auria smiles pleasantly, tight around the edges. “It’s good to see you.”

“I wish I could say the same,” Niu says, very reasonably. “But if you’re here now, I imagine you mean to cause problems.”

“Not cause them,” Auria disagrees. “ _Resolve_ them.”

“Mhm,” Niu nods, hands on her hips, and looks the very picture of doubt. “Your record speaks for itself.” She glances towards Tiladriel beside her. “I’m surprised you agreed to help her.”

“I haven’t,” Tiladriel bites out. “ _I_ am returning to the Council, where I belong. Auria asked me to bring you to her. Apparently she is quite convinced you would lend your services.”

“Oh?” Niu’s head turns back to Auria. “Am I to spirit you all away into the city, under the council’s watchful eye, and somehow manage to hide you away until what time you decide to reveal yourself for maximum effect?”

Auria chuckles. “Something to that effect, yes.”

A pause. Then, a shrug. “Well, if that’s all.” To Tiladriel, she raises a hand, shooing her away. “Go on, then, Tilly. _Kyria_ Thea’s boots are looking a bit less brilliant in your absence. I fear she misses you dearly.”

Tiladriel’s expression morphs into a scowl. “How you managed to weasel your way into the Council, I will never know.” With a shake of her head, she departs, and closes the door behind her.

In her absence, Niu pushes the mask up to the top of her head, and looks at them all with sharp, intelligent eyes of the darkest brown. “I have _no_ idea why you ever kept her around, Auria.”

Auria only smiles, stepping forward to embrace her. “It’s good to see you, Niu. It seems I’ll have even more to thank you for, soon.”

“Don’t remind me.” Niu pulls away from her, tutting. She turns to look towards Serana, and Eres beside her. “By the _Depths_ , Eres—is that you?”

Beside her, Eres shrinks. “Hello,” Eres says, and she does not sound at all like the Eres that Serana knows - quiet and almost shy.

Niu does not skip a beat. She comes to her, lifting her hands to pull Eres into an embrace that Serana is not sure she actually wanted. If she had thought her and Eres’ first hug was awkward, it was nothing in comparison to the tension in Eres’ form when Niu hugs her.

“And who’s this?” Niu asks, when she parts from her. Her dark eyes scan Serana too critically for her liking. Niu’s brows raise with something like interest. “A vampire? _Here_?” She asks, glancing at Eres. “I’ve never seen one up close. Is she fed?”

Serana frowns. “ _She_ is right here. Tell me - can everyone tell what I am, just by looking?”

“Has nothing to do with looking,” Niu says, shrugging. “Well, I suppose it does, a bit. But,” she waves vaguely in Serana’s general direction. “This isn’t Cyrodiil, you know. Anyone here would be able to tell. Your rhythm’s all wrong.”

“My…rhythm,” Serana repeats, uncomprehendingly. What the hell rhythm was she talking about?

Surprisingly, it is Eres who answers. “You breathe oddly,” she says, her voice sounding a bit distant, as if she answers without thinking of it. “The rhythm isn’t right.” When Serana looks at her, baffled, Eres shrugs helplessly. “It’s not noticeable most of the time unless you’re looking for it. But I suppose it must stand out here.”

“We are more in tune with such things here, yes,” Niu answers. “You may as well not waste your magic trying to hide. Unless you teach yourself to be more… human,” she shrugs, “we will always know. Quite bold of you to come here, of all places.” Her eyes narrow. “What business does a vampire have here in Falinesti?”

“She’s with me.” Eres meets Niu’s questioning gaze with a hard stare.

For a moment, Niu merely looks at her consideringly. Then, a slow smile spreads across her lips. “My, my,” she muses, sounding all too pleased. “You _have_ grown up, I see.” Eres flushes. “And you’re alright with this?” She asks of Auria, looking over her shoulder.

“Serana is a good woman, Niu,” Auria tells her. “Vampire or no. I have met no one who is as dedicated and loyal as she is.”

“Oh,” Niu says, with some surprise. “Seems like there’s a story behind that one.” She glances at Eres, quirking a brow. “You owe me a few stories of your own, you know. When we get you all settled in, I want to know everything. Especially…” her expression shifts, with such sympathy and regret that dread sinks low into Serana’s stomach. “After your father—”

“Not now,” Eres says quickly, too quickly. “Definitely not today. Or tomorrow. Or anytime soon. Just—we just need to go. I need time.”

Niu eyes her, humming low under her breath. There is something too knowing about this woman’s gaze, and if the look on Auria’s face is anything to go by - Serana isn’t the only person who feels that way. There is something about meeting a stranger and being confronted with the idea that they know your lover - or in Auria’s case, your daughter - better than you do, that is uniquely discomfiting. 

“So what’s the plan?” Isran interrupts. “How’re we getting out of here, if she’s wanted? That guard recognized her on sight.”

Niu smiles, all teeth. “Oh, I have my ways.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1\. Why couldn't Mirabelle help Auria? - Falinesti is a living, breathing city made up of magical trees. Any outside magical working, especially an attempt to break into a prison, would be sensed pretty much immediately. Falinesti is more suspicious of outsiders than other parts of Valenwood due to the fact that it is, essentially, the seat of Valenwood's governmental body. As such, they're not quite so welcoming as other places in the country. 
> 
> 2\. The Depths: Essentially, a very, very deep hollow near the base of the city's oldest and largest tree that serves as a dungeon for Falinesti's most dangerous or vilified prisoners. It is said that no one can escape from it on their own.


	4. Oath

No amount of telling herself not to look down could keep Eres from doing exactly that.

The moment Niu leads them out of the Hollow and into open air, Eres’ hand closes around Serana’s, tightening until even her own joints ache from the grip. She expects, when they step out onto the walkway just outside of an arched door of the Hollow’s long, winding corridor, that she will see the ground drop out from under them beneath a precarious wooden bridge, and she would be lucky if she did not pass out from the fear of it.

Her knees weaken, threatening to buckle when she takes that first step - and no matter how many times she had repeated that mantra to herself on the way — ( _don_ _’t look down don’t look down don’t look down)_ — the very first thing Eres does upon stepping through the archway is, of course, look down.

Her vision swims for the exact reasons it should not have - not because the ground falls out from beneath her, not because the walkway she stands on is held together with rope and driftwood - but because the ground beneath her feet is _solid_ , and she cannot see through it. Even when she - stupidly, mind you - peers over the side of the railing of the walkway, she sees not the stomach-clenching drop of hundreds of feet through the canopies to the ground below, but rather what appears to almost be a blanket of darkness, interrupted only by the intermittent glow of fireflies, and the occasional, barely there streak of what looks like magical energy flitting across the bottom of the canopies.

Still, her legs feel weak and watery, just _knowing_ she is so high up - what if she falls? What if someone runs into her, and she topples over the side of the railing? Knowing the thoughts are irrational does nothing to keep them from her mind.

Niu appears at her left side, blocking her view of the railing she is closest to.

“Even if you fell, the Graht-Oak would catch you,” Niu says to her, gentle in all the ways Eres hates to remember. “There are no shortage of foolhardy children, after all.” At this, she smiles, with a certain twinkle in her eye—like Eres is one of those children, even if she would not say it aloud. “Falinesti would be a very poor place to raise a family if we did not take precautions. I’ll walk beside you.”

To Serana, at Eres’ right side, Niu says, “It is easier if we keep her between us. The railings make her nervous.”

Serana’s hand squeezes Eres’, but she’s not sure if it’s meant to comfort her, or if it had been involuntary.

“You’d think they’d do the opposite.”

“Oh, normally they would.” Niu does not touch Eres, thank the gods—but when she walks forward, Serana does too, and Eres stumbles along after them, feeling safer for both of them near her. She would not fall, she could not but - having people near who could catch her if she did, somehow made her feel better. It made the weakness in her legs more manageable. “But Eres has never been normal.”

Eres normally might have argued that. Might have even snapped at the woman for the comment, especially now when her mind is frazzled and her temper is up and she feels like crawling out of her skin. But talking means she must think, and her mind is far too focused on trying to walk for her to bother with speaking.

“Has she ever told you why she’s afraid of heights?” Niu asks, remarkably casual for a woman who is spiriting a fugitive away into the very city she works for. “She used to have a habit of leaning on railings—”

Eres glares at the ground, gripping Serana’s hand more tightly. She’s going to hate this. Niu likes to tell stories. And what else would she tell stories of, other than Eres herself? She would not tell stories of Valenwood as they’re walking in it. Eres is the only thing that any of them have in common.

Niu will tell stories, and Eres will be mortified, and too many people will learn too many things and by gods, she wishes Niu would shut up.

“You’d think falling off a balcony or two would teach a girl a lesson,” Niu is saying, lightly, with laughter in her voice, “but I am sure she has grown no less stubborn for the years. Four times! It took four times, falling off that damned balcony, before she learned to fear it.”

“Can we stop talking about falling off things?” Eres stares at the ground beneath her feet. Maybe if she focuses just on the path, she won’t remember how high up they are.

The ground beneath her feet is a dull, lifeless greyish-white in the dead of night, illuminated only by the orange-red glow of lanterns swinging overhead at either end of the path. It doesn’t look like stone, but rather - something like bark, but more solid and sturdy, as though someone had taken a tree and turned it into flat stone for building a road.

“It’s beautiful,” Serana says beside her. “Eres, look—”

“I’m not looking. I’ll look tomorrow.” That’s a lie. Probably. She’s not too keen on doing just about anything tomorrow unless it’s cussing out her mother for not telling her she was a _goddamn criminal_.

“You should look now,” Serana tells her. “In the morning, it’ll probably be easier to tell how high up we are.” Eres’ stomach turns. “At least right now, it’s too dark to see much of anything below.”

Eres looks up - not to look around, but to glare at Serana for the reminder - and stops where she stands.

The path they walk on is wide enough to have allowed for a full-sized carriage at each side without touching, as wide as a main road in Skyrim might have been, with waist-high railings at either side that twine up from the ground like vines and curl around banisters that sprout with leaves and little buds of what might have been flowers, were they in bloom. Just ahead of them, the path widens, splitting into paths going in what seems like every direction, not straight but winding, curling around the settled trees nearby, curving around trunks and circling around branches as large as entire trees back home. Where the paths wind upward, soft bluish-white light emanates from the bulbs of flowering blooms hanging from overhead branches like chandeliers, bathing the greyish bark-like paths with such pure light that it seems as polished white marble beneath it.

Several paths have been blocked off, not by the means of man, but by nature, with branches that drape unnaturally to hang over walkways such that none could pass it. The buildings carved into the trunks and limbs of the trees have not the hard angles and cut corners of the Empire or Skyrim, but soft curves and rounded corners conforming to the nature around it.

Falinesti is a city not built, but _grown_ , and it shows in every twining walkway, in every spiraling path and in the shapes of buildings grown from first the trees, and then from each other, until the city is not a collection of neatly placed homes and government buildings and shops but that of almost a living being, growing as it must, adding to itself as it expands, no more and no less than what is needed.

And Serana’s right. It’s _beautiful_ , even at night - perhaps especially at night, when the darkness is staved off by the glow of not harsh torchlight, but that of glowing, bulbous plants, of the soft warm glow of paper lanterns dangling from above or set upon railings. There is the chatter of some kind of primate in the trees, rustling the lighter branches as they leap to and fro in the night. There is the somber call of owls, uttering low, calming calls into the dark around them. There is even the soft murmur of voices nearby, the sound of work and the sense of magic beneath her feet, in the air, in everything around her.

Even the far-flung dreams of her childhood, yearning for an escape from the home she’d come to hate - seem to pale in comparison.

Beside her, Niu reaches for her, squeezing her gently at the elbow. “I told you, didn’t I?” she asks, eyes gleaming with something like pride. “I could never do it justice.”

Ahead of her, Auria turns, meets her gaze, and smiles. “Welcome home, Eresael.”

* * *

Niu leads them not to Auria’s home, but her own.

Eres releases a sigh of relief when she sees it. Despite how beautiful Falinesti was, she still feels better for knowing that Niu’s house is carved into the trunk, rather than along one of the branches.

“Sorry,” Niu says to Auria, pushing the door open. “Several of the bridges are out, and it’s safer not to risk the lower rings just now.”

“I’m sure we can go tomorrow morning,” Auria tells her, with a pleasant smile. She walks into Niu’s home not like a guest, but like someone who has been there many times and who feels at home there. She is already peeling off her cloak before the rest of them begin to file inside.

Eres still holds Serana’s hand in her own, and even the door closing behind them does not ease her anxiety entirely. She’s not terribly convinced the guard won’t just show up here in the middle of the night to cart them all away.

Niu’s home is… not what she might have expected.

Unlike a home in the Empire, or in Skyrim, the furniture is not independent of the home itself, but rather, seems to be built in, extending from the floor or the wall in such a manner that it could not be easily moved. Like the floor beneath their feet, much of it is in the same, greyish-white bark-like material she had seen on the walkway, hardened and polished to a dull, but pleasant shine. Now that she sees it beneath closer lighting, it strikes her that it is exactly what it looks like.

The walls, the floor, the ceiling, the furniture - all of it is not made from stone, or processed wood as it might have been back home, but rather growths from the tree itself that have been shaped for their intended use and frozen into place.

“Is this petrified?” Serana asks, speaking word to the question in Eres’ own mind.

Niu glances at her. “Hm?” She sees the low table Serana has gestured to, surrounded by several cloth pads that look like cushions, and gives a wry smile. “Something like that,” she answers. “The Graht-Oak provides us with all we need. It is a magical petrification, not a normal one. And,” she points out, “it is not dead. Should we no longer have use of it, it can be reformed into something else.”

“Huh,” Serana’s brows raise, impressed. “And everything is made this way?”

“Just about.” Niu shrugs. “Some of the Hollows are reinforced, of course. With clay and the like. But for homes, and the paths - yes, it is all made from the Graht-Oaks within the city.”

Isran reaches out with a foot and nudges one leg of the table. It doesn’t move.

To Isran, Auria says, “They must be attached, of course, or they might slide.”

Eres pales. Her hand tightens around Serana’s all over again. Now that she’s standing still, she can almost feel it - the gentle sway of the floor beneath her feet, the to-and-fro of a barely-noticeable rocking from one side to another. The ground beneath her feet feels no different from the deck of a ship rocking on the waves of a gentle ocean. It might have even been soothing, were it not for the knowledge of how high up they are.

A young woman, dressed plainly in sleeping robes, appears from down the long hall just ahead of them, rubbing sleep from her eyes. _“Kyria_?” She calls, lifting a hand that holds a candlestick lit not with fire, but something like it that glows a soft bluish-white instead of orange. “You—” The woman freezes at the sight of Auria, quieting, eyes wide.

“Show our guests to the west rooms,” Niu tells her, without missing a beat. There is a certain hardness to her gaze, a certain daring - a daring to be challenged. To be questioned, perhaps. “And instruct these three how to run their baths.” She sweeps an arm toward Isran, Serana, and Eres herself. “Then you can return to bed. We won’t have need of you tonight.”

The young woman hesitates. Then she dips her head in a slight bow. “Of course,” she says, thankfully in Alessian. Eres had feared that many of the Bosmeri here might not speak it, but it seems that most of them do - or at least the ones she has met do. Her eyes drift to Auria, then drop to the floor. “ _Kyria_ ,” she murmurs.

“Just Auria, now,” Auria replies, her voice gentle. “I will take the room beside Niu’s. We have much to discuss. Would you mind bringing us tea, when you have shown them their rooms?”

“Of course,” the woman nods again, but she does not meet Auria’s eyes. To Eres and the others, she says, “This way,” and turns on her heel, back down the darkened corridor she had come from.

Eres frowns at the girl’s back as they follow. “What is your name?” She asks.

“They call me Maeve,” says the woman.

“…And is Maeve your name?”

“No,” Maeve answers. She looks over her shoulder, and there is just the slightest trace of amusement in her eyes. “But no one is able to pronounce my real name. Even here.” She shrugs. “So they call me Maeve.”

“I can learn,” Eres answers, though she can’t say for sure why it bothers her. Is it that this woman had assumed she would not be able to say it, or that she feels as though everyone deserves to be called by their true name? “What is it?”

When Maeve speaks her name, it is a collection of syllables that takes several seconds to complete, and with several phonetic sounds that Eres is not sure she even knows _how_ to produce, let alone could repeat them. At Eres’ baffled look, Maeve laughs.

“It is ancient Bosmeri,” she explains, smiling. Eres knows she could not hope to pronounce it herself, not without extensive practice, but Maeve seems pleased enough that she has asked. “No one speaks it anymore, save for the Elders. But every firstborn daughter of my family has had this name, and so too do I. Don’t fret,” she says, when Eres’ frown returns. Her eyes twinkle. “I was eight before I learned to pronounce it.”

“I didn’t realize the Bosmeri language had changed so much,” Serana muses idly as they walk. “Your name sounds nothing like how it’s spoken now.”

“Oh, but of course,” Maeve says quickly, glancing at them with surprise. Eres imagines they will get a lot of looks like that here, knowing so little about the past of her own people. “It is said our language - that is, what we speak today - was borne of necessity. When the Gods gave us the gift of our forms, our tongues were too clumsy to speak as we once had. We speak now because we must, but there was a time when our people communicated more in emotions and concepts than words.” Then, she shrugs, a helpless, careless motion that lacks the gravitas of her words. “Or so the stories say.”

Just as in the Hollow, the long corridor in Niu’s home seems to wind around until, by the time they stop in front of a door, Eres is not convinced they have not simply walked in a circle.

“Here we are,” Maeve pushes the door open, revealing a well-sized bedroom that looks to have been left unused for quite some time. “Don’t worry, we change the sheets regularly.” She hesitates then, eying Serana and Isran. Though her gaze lingers on Serana for a moment, she says nothing to her directly. “Shall it be three rooms, then, or…?” Her eyes flicker to Eres and Serana’s joined hands.

“I’ll be staying with her.” Serana glances at Eres, then, as if she expects she might argue it.

The look bothers her more than she’d like to admit. Where else would Serana have stayed? “She’s with me,” Eres confirms, when Maeve does not immediately respond.

Maeve looks between them, a flicker of uncertainty in her eyes. It disappears as quickly as it had come, masked by tacit politeness.

“Of course,” Maeve says, smiling in a manner that does not quite reach her eyes. If she disagrees with Serana and Eres staying together in the same room, she at least does not speak of it aloud. She turns instead to Isran, and her smile warms ever so slightly. “Come,” she says, and walks to the opposite side of the hall to open the door just across from the first. “You can stay in this room, if you’d like.”

Isran shifts on his feet, his lips tugging into a frown as his brows furrow. “Do you have anything closer to the front?” He asks.

Maeve pauses, hand on the door handle. “To the front?” Her eyes shift again towards Serana and Eres, in such a way that Eres wonders if she had expected Isran to chaperone them.

“I prefer being close to an exit.” Isran’s expression speaks nothing of any other cause for his request, though Eres wonders if he had meant, in some capacity, to give them more privacy. It would not be the first time he had surprised her with his tact. “One that I can find, preferably.”

“Oh, of course.” Maeve, just as anyone who looked at Isran, could likely spot him for a soldier. “One moment, then, while I show them how to run the bath, and I’ll take you to the north rooms.”

Maeve makes quick work of showing Eres and Serana inside the room, and leading them both to a small door against the far wall. When she opens it, there is a basin carved into the floor, with several dark holes at the bottom that look to be some sort of drain. On two of them, Eres spots the flicker of magical energy, but concentrating does not reveal anything further of them. One, Maeve explains, would release hot water, and the other, cold. The third and final could be used to stopper the tub, or to drain it with a touch.

“Where does the water come from?” Eres asks, repeating Serana’s question from earlier in the day. “How do you get it all the way up here?”

“Why, the Graht-Oak, of course,” Maeve answers, as if that should have been obvious. “The Oak provides us with all we need.”

Eres makes a face. “That doesn’t actually answer the question.”

“Do trees not need water to survive?” Maeve asks her, raising a brow. “The Oaks simply take more than they need, and allow us to use the excess. It is a system that works well for us.”

“Oh,” Eres says, suddenly feeling quite dumb. She hadn’t considered that she had meant it so literally.

“I will show—”

“Isran,” Isran provides.

“Isran to his rooms,” Maeve says. “If you need anything else, don’t hesitate to come find me.”

Eres nods, and watches as Maeve leads Isran back out of the room and into the hall beyond. Maeve does not close the door as they leave, but Isran does - with a final, meaningful look in Eres’ direction that she can read perfectly with a glance: _Talk to her._

The door closes behind them both, and Eres is left alone with Serana.

For the first time since the night before, when they had argued - or rather, when _Eres_ had argued, and Serana had taken it, despite not deserving it in the slightest.

“I’ll run you a bath.” Serana moves to do just that before she responds, leaving her hand cold and empty without Serana’s between her own.

Eres watches her from the doorway, tugging at a length of her hair if only to feel the slight pain of it on her scalp - it helps her to think. To think clearly. To feel something beyond the raging swirl of emotion that’s been caught in her chest since the night before. Since—since everything.

Her mother is a criminal. Some part of her had known that, maybe. Perhaps not a criminal, perhaps not a woman who had been imprisoned wrongly - but she had known that Auria had never been quite upfront with her, that there had always been something that her mother had held back from her. She had known that. She and Serana had even joked about it, once, not so long ago. They’d both known that Valenwood would have its fair share of challenges, one way or another, if only because Auria had been so tight lipped about it that they had known to expect trouble.

But - eighteen years. _Eighteen years_ , and it had been because of Eres. Because Eres had dared to exist, in some respect.

_Failure to terminate. Halfling girl._

Eres pinches at the bridge of her nose, temples aching. Chest aching. Everything, aching.

She’d had lofty ideals of the Bosmer, perhaps. The stories she’d been told as a child, the thought of Valenwood as some magical place she might escape to one day… She had never considered back then that such a place might not have wanted her. Were the Bosmer truly no better than the Nords under Ulfric’s banner, wanting nothing to do with anyone who was not racially pure? Would she no more belong to the Bosmer than she did to the Nords, or the Imperials? Would she spend so much of her life with one foot in the door, only for it to be shut in her face by those beyond it?

The Council—the Sages, or the government, or whoever it might have been… They had wanted Auria to leave her behind. They had, at some point, presumably wanted Auria to be rid of her entirely. And failing that, on both fronts, Auria had been tossed in a dungeon to rot and left to her own devices. Auria’s own friends here had turned against her. Even those who, seemingly, held some level of power, like Tiladriel. The cards had been stacked against her from day one, and Eres—

Eres had held it against her for so long, and it may truly have never been Auria’s fault. Even after Auria had told her the truth of it, some part of her had doubted. Some part of her had doubted that it could have been so simple, so neatly packed in such a way that it had absolved Auria of all guilt - of course, you see, it was not Auria’s fault she was abandoned at all - but she had believed it, because she had wanted to. She had accepted it, because she had wanted to.

Now she has confirmation. Confirmation that it was not only the truth of things, but that the whole truth of it had been _worse_. That the whole truth of it meant that she could not fault Auria, not really. That she could not resent her at all, even privately, because Auria had never had the chance to do right by her. She’d never been given the opportunity. They’d simply locked her away and thrown away the key, and maybe her mother would have rotted away in that dungeon without ever seeing the light of day again, if she had not escaped.

And then Niu…

Eres presses both hands to her face and lets out a long groan. How could so much have happened in just a few hours? How is she supposed to process any of this?

* * *

By the time Serana emerges from the bath, Eres is almost asleep. She can hear the evenness to her breath, see the stillness in her form beneath the covers. For a moment, she contemplates finding a book to read and spending the night on the couch at one side of the room, just to avoid disturbing her.

But Eres stirs, raising her head to blink blearily at her in the darkness.

“Go to sleep,” Serana calls to her, keeping her voice low. “We can talk in the morning.”

“No,” Eres says, because of course she does. She pushes herself up on her hands until she leans against the headboard, rubbing at tired eyes. “We can’t keep putting it off.”

“We’re not.” Serana sits on the bed, all the same. She knows very well how stubborn Eres can be when she’s set her mind to something. Eres isn’t going to go to sleep until she’s satisfied, she’s sure of it. “But you’re tired, and—”

“I’m always tired,” Eres waves a hand dismissively. Serana makes a face—that’s not hardly as good of a defense as Eres seems to think it is. “I need you to know that I don’t blame you.”

Serana sighs, settling back against the headboard herself. The stiffness of it, built into the wall as it is, is unfamiliar and strange. But as unyielding as the bedframe seems to be, the bed itself is quite comfortable. If she had closed her eyes, she might not have been able to tell the difference between this one and the one at home, in Eres’ bedchambers.

Regardless of what Eres wants her to think, regardless of what Eres herself might even think she believes - she knows that, in some small part, Eres _does_ blame her. That in some part, no matter how small, Serana _had_ been the reason for all of this. Eres had said as much herself, the first time they’d spoken when Eres had come to herself in Coldharbour. Eres had gone there for her sake, not her own.

One way or another, even if Eres doesn’t blame her, it’s still sort of her fault, anyways.

“It’s alright, Eres.”

“It’s not—”

“It is,” Serana insists, catching her gaze with a firm look of her own. “You went to Coldharbour for me. Even if you were angry last night, even if you did speak out of turn - there’s no erasing that truth.”

Eres’ expression shifts, eyes flashing in the way that says she’s about to be her best contrarian self. “And I would have died if I hadn’t gone,” she says, equally firm. “I told you that, too. I would have let him kill me in Bruiant, if he hadn’t threatened you. I would have died in that mansion, and you’d have had nothing left of me but ashes. If Inigo would have even been able to find them.”

The thought sends Serana’s heart sinking low into her stomach. Flashes of a world that had not come to be, gods all bless - pass in her mind’s eye. Inigo standing before them with Dawnbreaker, not with the determination he’d shown to go after her, to retrieve her from Coldharbour - but with resignation and remorse, with the regret of a person who must tell someone that their loved one has died, and they could not be helped.

She doesn’t want to think of a world like that. She doesn’t want to think of what could have been, if Eres had let Molag Bal kill her.

“I was—” Eres looks away from her, down at her lap, swallowing hard. “I’m sorry for lashing out at you. I didn’t mean…” Eres presses both hands to her face, with a heavy sigh. “I let my temper get the better of me. I just—I wanted to be right. I wanted to prove to you that you were wrong, even if it hurt you. I was so angry that I didn’t care how my words might have affected you. I’m supposed to be better than him, and I—”

“You _are_ better than him.” Serana doesn’t have to ask who she means. She already knows. The shadow of Eres’ father has loomed over her since they had met. “Did your father ever admit he was wrong?”

Eres scoffs. “Of course not.”

“My point exactly.” Serana reaches for her, lifts her chin until Eres looks at her. “You’re not your father. You just…” Serana shakes her head. “You try so hard not to be him that you keep everything bottled up inside until it explodes on you. That’s why you snapped. How long had you just been letting all this fester without telling anyone how you felt? And that’s not me blaming you, I only mean that you’ve been dealing with a lot, for a long time, and so much of it is things that no one else can really help you with. Being Dragonborn, going through Coldharbour, the mantling… I don’t think there’s a woman on Nirn who has as much on her shoulders as you do.

“Frankly,” Serana adds, almost flippantly, “it’s actually kind of impressive it took you this long to snap on someone. As much as I would rather it have been someone else,” she adds, dryly.

“I’m trying to apologize.”

“And I’m trying to tell you, I accept.” Serana shrugs. “I’m not perfect either, Eres. I know that I’ve been hard on you too, sometimes.” Serana has been thinking of it since the night before. How many times had she judged Eres for her decisions, how many times had she argued them? How many times had Eres insisted she had no other choice, and Serana had insisted otherwise? Perhaps, with someone other than Eres, Serana might have been right.

But so many of Eres’ choices have been made for her, and she has merely stepped up to the occasion and accepted the hand dealt to her, no matter how unfair it was. And Serana, whether it had come from a good place or not, had spent so much time insisting that _she_ knew better how to deal with the things Eres was dealing with. That she had all the right answers, and Eres was just being foolish and stubborn.

And maybe, sometimes, that had been the case. Eres certainly could be both. But it was not always that way, and Serana could imagine how such a thing would have taken a toll on Eres over time, even if she had not said anything. Even if Eres herself had not even realized it, at first.

“You had to make a lot of hard decisions, and I didn’t always agree with you on them. A lot of the time, I didn’t,” Serana adds, remembering all too well the weeks leading up to Eres’ departure to Sovngarde. She had fought Eres at every turn. Part of that had been desperation and fear - her own fear that she might lose her. But it had also been selfish, in a manner. “And even when you were struggling with things, I still felt like I knew better than you did about the things _you_ were going through.”

Confusion swirls in Eres’ eyes, and Serana gives her a wry smile. “It took you yelling at me yesterday for me to realize that. I’d just—never looked at things from your perspective. I was so wrapped up in my own feelings about the danger you were headed into, that I didn’t think of how it must have made you feel to not have me supporting you. To have me questioning you all the time, and telling you that you were wrong. Insisting you had options when you didn’t. You had every right to be upset with me. I just wish you’d told me sooner.”

“I—” Eres blinks, several times in quick succession. “This isn’t where I saw this conversation going.”

Serana chuckles, pulling her close. “That’s because you have a martyr complex.”

“I do _not_.”

“Oh?” Serana asks, “So you weren’t going to take all the blame for this and pretend I had nothing to do with it?” Eres’ mouth opens to argue - and then she presses her lips together in something halfway between a frown and a pout. “Case in point.”

“I’m still sorry.”

“And I already told you, I forgive you. Not that you need to be forgiven, really, but if it makes you feel better.” Serana shrugs. “More importantly, though…”

Eres stiffens in her arms, pulling away from her. She knows what’s coming, just from the guarded look in her eyes.

“About Sovngarde,” Serana says, barrelling right into it, “what is this deal you were talking about? What do I have to do with it?”

“I can’t tell you,” Eres says tightly, though Serana sees conflict in her eyes, now that she’s looking for it. Eres _wants_ to tell her. It’s as plain as day. “But what did you think Mara gave you that for?” Her eyes flicker to Serana’s throat, where the choker Eres had brought her rests comfortably around her neck. The one she still finds herself staring at sometimes, unused to the sight of her neck without Molag Bal’s visage engraved on it.

“…You told me it was a gift,” Serana manages, mind spinning. What part of ‘here, have this choker’ translated into ‘by the way, Mara has your soul now’? How was she supposed to know? “ _Mara?_ _”_

Eres shrugs. “She likes you, for some reason. I think,” she makes an odd face, like she’s not actually quite sure. “But she did imply that you’d be in her realm now, not his. And there’s no trace of him on you anymore.”

At that, Serana raises a brow. “Since when were you able to sense him?”

“I don’t know,” Eres says, and she does look like she’s not sure, at least. “But you feel a bit different now from before. So I assumed that was Mara’s doing.”

“Different, how?”

Eres shrugs again. “Lighter, I suppose.”

“Hmm…” Yeah, she’s going to need to know more about that one. Why hadn’t her mother ever mentioned anything? She’d been able to sense Stendarr’s influence on Eres back in Coldharbour - surely she’d have been able to sense such a change in Serana, right? “Speaking of light…”

Eres raises a brow at her.

“Does what happened in Sovngarde have something to do with the light I saw?”

By the expression on Eres’ face, it’s plain that she hasn’t the slightest clue what she’s talking about. “What light?”

“When you appeared at High Hrothgar, for one. It was like looking directly at the sun.” A certain level of consideration comes over Eres’ face, then. “And the day after.” That makes Eres’ brows raise high. “I saw something. Here,” she says, brushing a finger over the skin at the center of Eres’ chest, right over her heart. “Like something glowing from inside.”

“Hmm…” Eres hums, nodding to herself, but says nothing else. Even so, Serana can tell just from the look in her eyes that she knows more about this than she’s letting on.

“You don’t look too surprised.”

“I don’t know,” Eres says then, shrugging helplessly. “I didn’t see it myself. Not sure what it is.”

“You’re a terrible liar.”

“I really didn’t see it!” Eres argues, and Serana rolls her eyes.

“I believe you on that front, maybe. But you _do_ have an idea of what it is. It’s written all over your face.” Eres averts her gaze, and that is all that Serana needs to confirm it. “I’m guessing this is another one of those things you can’t tell me.”

Eres nods. “I’m sorry. I wish I could. It would make everything so much easier if I could tell you. Maybe you’d understand, if you knew, but…” She sighs. “I can’t tell you.”

“And what if I figure it out for myself?” Serana asks. “Do some research, come to you with my theories?”

Eres raises her brows in a manner that looks far too much like a challenge. “You can certainly try,” she says, as though she expects that Serana could never figure it out on her own.

“I’ll take you up on that, then,” Serana says, forcibly light. She wishes, beyond anything else, that Eres could just _tell_ her. Tell her _something_ at least, other than these vague half-truths and white lies. But if it takes her digging into a bit of research to figure it out, then hell - she’ll do it. Especially when Eres looks at her like she can’t possibly manage it - now she has to, just to prove her wrong. “Would you even be able to confirm it, if I did figure it out?”

“No,” Eres says, chuckling. “But you said I’m a terrible liar, so. I guess you’d realize if you were right just based on my reaction.”

“True…” Now that would be something. “I’ll have to ask Auria where the library is in this place. They must have tomes somewhere on this kind of thing.”

“On Sovngarde,” Eres deadpans, unimpressed. “In _Valenwood_.”

Serana shoots her an equally unimpressed look of her own. “I’m sure they have more than just books on the Bosmeri there, Eres.”

Eres shrugs. “Good luck.”

Boy, she _really_ sounds far too confident that Serana will fail. “Have you forgotten that I’m competitive?”

Eres smirks at her. “No,” she says, eyes dancing with mirth. “But you’re still going to need to get lucky.”

Serana narrows her eyes at her. “You’re enjoying this.”

“A little,” Eres admits, and she at least has the decency to look a bit sheepish. “You’re cute when you’re all fired up about going to hunt down a bunch of encyclopedias, or something.”

“You know,” Serana shifts, moving to pin Eres beneath her, hands on her wrists and hips against hips. “You’re getting a little cocky for my taste.”

Eres blinks - and then starts to laugh. It takes Serana several seconds to realize what’s funny about what she had said.

“Oh, for gods’ sake,” Serana mutters, rolling her eyes. “You’re an actual child.” Eres manages an apology through her laughter, eyes far too bright with amusement.

As annoying as it is, Serana can’t help the warm fondness that spreads in her chest. Eres is the Dragonborn, and had once mantled a God, and defeated Alduin, and saved the world not once, but twice - and she still laughs at terrible, unintentional puns.

“I love you, you idiot.” Serana leans down to kiss her, smiling against her lips.

“It’s funny because—”

“I know why _you_ think it’s funny,” Serana presses a hand over Eres’ mouth, stopping her mid-explanation. She hardly needs a run-down. “You’re still an idiot.”

“You love me.” Eres smiles up at her, and the warmth in Serana’s chest expands just a little more. They hadn’t gotten as much on the table as Serana had hoped, and still, Eres looks so much better for it.

“I do,” Serana confirms, and seals it with a kiss. “I’ll always love you.”

“I love you, too.” A beat. Then, “Forever.”

“Forever’s a long time,” Serana muses.

“I mean it,” Eres says, entirely serious. “Until the day I die.”

At that, Serana raises a brow. “What is this, a vow?” She asks, amused despite herself. “Can’t get me in a temple, so you decided to marry me in bed?”

Eres blinks, then laughs. “Yes,” she agrees, going along with it. “Where’s my ring?”

“I need to go shopping for one, apparently,” Serana drawls. Should she be uneasy about this conversation? For some reason, it feels like she should be – but she isn’t. “Gold or platinum?”

“No silver?”

Serana raises a brow. “I’m not going to burn myself every time I want to hold your hand.”

“Oh, right…” Eres frowns. “Platinum…?” She asks, more than states. “I don’t know. You know I was joking, right?”

“Hmm,” Serana draws a shape on Eres’ palm, following the path of the creases in her skin. If she remembers right, the ‘M’ shape is a lifeline or something of that sort. What would Eres’ say? “’Wife’ doesn’t sound too bad.”

“I don’t know,” Eres shrugs beneath her, far too casually for the flush that’s spread across her cheeks. “Hard to compete with ‘darling’.”

Feeling far too impish for her own good, Serana smirks down at her. “My darling wife, then.”

Eres turns red, and Serana laughs. Oh, she’d missed being able to fluster her so much.

“You could at least propose properly,” Eres mutters, though she still doesn’t look Serana in the eyes.

“You started it,” Serana chuckles. “Usually the ring comes first, anyhow. And I suppose I’d have to get your mother’s blessing—”

“Please stop talking,” Eres moans, pressing her hands to her face. “Talk about something else.”

Serana supposes she can take a bit of pity on her. “Well, speaking of your mother, we do still have to deal with—"

“Serana,” Eres cuts in, peeling her hands away to look up at her with raised brows. “You’re on top of me.”

“Very observant of you,” Serana returns, raising her own brows.

“I don’t want to talk about my mother,” Eres says, with a pointed look, and Serana gets it.

“Oh,” she says, not quite at her most intelligent. Eres’ arms close around her shoulders, pulling her ever closer, and she thinks even less after that.

Serana will have to remember to thank Isran in the morning - discreetly, that is. It’s a good thing he’d asked for a room in a different part of the home - apparently, they’re not going to be the quietest neighbors.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> For the inspiration for Falinesti, you can see it at my Pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/597360338066522356/ & https://www.pinterest.com/pin/597360338066522316/
> 
> Trivia/Notes: 
> 
> 1\. Falinesti, Bosmeri construction: Just as in the original Elder Scrolls lore, the Bosmeri do not cut down trees or harm nature in any way in order to construct buildings. Instead, they use magic (with the aid of the sentient Graht-Oaks) to shape the wood of the trees into what they need. Therefore, architecture in Falinesti tends to look much more organic than that of a planned out city built out of stone or cement or whatever else. Once it has been shaped, the growth "petrifies", in a manner, except it is not actually dead, but instead sort of "suspended". They can regrow or reshape these growths if necessary, though it does take a lot of effort and time to do so.  
> 1a. In lore, Falinesti is actually just ONE Graht Oak, and the city is built on the branches and into the tree itself. In Vigilance, Falinesti is actually a forest made up of several Graht-Oaks and other very tall trees that are not quite as big. You can think of many of the trees about as large as a Sycamore in our world, with the Graht-Oaks being significantly wider than others, allowing for more construction to be done inside the tree.  
> 2\. "Hollow": Essentially, any building or area that is built into the interior of a tree is colloquially referred to as a Hollow, as it imitates the Hollow of a tree that an animal might den in. Typically, only government buildings, temples, and high-ranking citizens' homes are within the interior of the tree, with markets, public spaces, and average citizens' residences being located on the exterior or along the branches.  
> 3\. Bridges: The bridges between trees are built to be flexible, but can still sometimes break during the Migration due to the movement of the trees.  
> 4\. Falling?: Not impossible, but there are magical protections against it. You'd have to try pretty hard to fall out of the city.  
> 5\. The Bosmeri do not use regular fire - all lanterns, cooking fires, etc, are created with magical fire to reduce the chance of burning. Don't really want to start a wildfire in a city built into trees.


End file.
